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Last Updated: Mar 31, 2009 - 2:29:20 PM |
More than 65 volunteers turned out in Marengo on Saturday to turn the year-long dream of Pennies for the Park into reality. The new playground equipment is now installed and is expected to be available for use this week. Mitch Traphagen Photo
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MARENGO - The Pennies for the Park project realized it’s goal on Saturday, September 27, 2008. The project fund raising process began at the end of September 2007. “I cannot believe that we raised the money, $100,000, in less than one year,” commented one member of the PFP team, Candi Schmieder. “Brian Miller Excavating donated $5,000 in excavating work and Steve Krakow helped dig out the holes, one hundred and twenty two of them,” said Schmieder. “I was up here helping to shovel dirt, so I know. It is amazing to see all of this stuff put together though.”
Candi spoke of a curly haired young man of about three or four that had been watching the work leading up to construction day with his grandfather.
“He asked me, What are you doing? I said well we’re going to have a structure here and there will be drums on it that you can play and you can walk up it and you can go down some slides. He just started squealing and giggling at the thought of it. So to be able to provide this for the children of the community just makes you feel really good.”
Asked when the structures would be ready for the real test, Schmieder said, “The surfacing should be completed and the structure ready to play on by Wednesday.” She further explained that the last load of mulch should be here by then to complete the 12 inch surfacing requirements, which is to include 2 inches of gravel and 10 inches of mulch to ensure safety. “This is fitness based equipment,” said Schmieder, “and it has a lot of climbing stuff on it because that’s what kids like to do.” Pointing to one such piece of equipment that actually looked like a slide but Schmieder referred to as the Astro Climber, “Oh, my husband is playing on that one right now,” she said, laughing.
The project has seen excellent community support since it began. “We got a good start yesterday because the junior and senior shop classes came and helped us unload all twelve crates full of stuff in just one hour,” Schmieder said. “I thought that would just be my job all day long, unloading that stuff. So that saved us time and were able to start putting things together a day early. Today we’re pouring concrete a lot earlier than we thought possible. We had sixty-five people signed up to help.” Some members of the Iowa Valley Tiger football team are also reported to have shown up early on Saturday morning to help after a late night and a long drive from their game.
Schmieder agreed that it was nice to have an impact, adding, “and to see something real like this that you can actually touch and see.”
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