What a great day!
As I wind down my CEA Presidency, I had the opportunity to participate in a unique community service project today. Bermuda District School Board Representative Carrie Coyner helped CCPS and Chesterfield County Parks and Rec win a competitive grant from a new $4.1M partnership between the KaBoom! Foundation and Carmax to build a community playground for children in neighborhoods in need of assistance. Fit4Kids also helped support the project, and the specific playground design came from the area children themselves.
As Tropical Storm Andrea taunted us all day, we were our own force of nature! It was awesome! It was wet, it was dirty, it was high energy--the best organized chaos ever. Over 150 volunteers without specific construction skills randomly assigned to teams under the direction of about 10 task captains raised the entire playground in just shy of 4.5 hours. And, little did we know until we started, we were competing head-to-head with a team doing the same thing in L.A. Right Coast wins again!
I planted and mulched trees, carried bags of concrete, erected a 6-seat swingset, drove in 3-foot metal pins to hold the playground border in place, and raked cypress mulch under the swings to a depth of 2 feet! All while having a great time with people who gave up their day to build this fantastic playground that will serve the kids of the Bellwood and Bensley communities for many years to come. These two elementary schools are high-performing Title I schools, and this is exactly the kind of recognition and community pride they deserve. I am happy to have been able to represent all the teachers from those schools who could not participate because they were in their classrooms with excited students. This was one of the most satisfying activities of my presidency, and something I will always remember.
~Frank
