And the Park Playground Project continues...with your help...

Part 2 of our story about the installation process of the new play equipment.

During the process Wendy learned that our equipment is quite old (1989) and needs to be replaced in the next few years. Wendy says "the new Superintendant of parks is very pro playgrounds, but that also means he pays attention to safety, which is great."

She said the Parks Department has done a survey of all of the 125 playgrounds in the city and Laurelhurst is in the bottom 25 - so something needs to be done. Many people say it really doesn't seem like it from looking at the older equipment that still remains. But Wendy said it's up to the Parks Department to decide when equipment should be replaced.

"So, if we don't do anything to move forward with the project now, we risk having our equipment removed by the City with NO warning. This was done at multiple parks around Seattle this year including Seward Park and Bayview Park."

Good news in this next phase is that $400K is slated for a new playground for the park, due to the latest levy that passed.

"BUT someone needs to take this project on so it actually happens. The City doesn't do projects like this alone - they need community involvement. We have some money left over from the toddler play equipment project that could be used to obtain a new matching grant for the design of an overall new playground (of course retaining the toddler equipment we just put in). And then we may not have to raise much money (if any) depending on what the community decides is important to do to the playground."

So your help is needed! If you are interested in spearheading this project - could be along with or 2 or 3 other people chairing it together - "we could get a wonderful new playground" Wendy says.

"If we don't do anything, I'm afraid we'll never see the money, or worse, we'll be left with hardly any equipment, and that would be a shame."

Please think about this great community opportunity. Contact Wendy Kelley at wendygkelley@hotmail.com or our Staff at laurelhurstblogger@gmail.com for more information. We'd love to hear from you.

And thanks again to Wendy and her team for having a vision and following through on it to bring us some very fun new play equipment.