More than 250 volunteers came together with teachers, staff and students on Wednesday to help Slater Elementary School fulfill a six-year dream by installing a playground, thanks to an ongoing partnership with KaBOOM! and Surgical Care Affiliates (SCA). But the renovations didn’t stop there. Volunteers also added an outdoor classroom, picnic tables, a sandbox, an above-ground terrarium and a ground mural of the world.
“I’m so glad we got this playground,” said fourth-grader Sherrod Moore. “Before this all we could do is go play football down on the [open] field and run up and down the streets. And I didn’t want to do that. Now we have swings, and stuff like that, and there’s enough room for each of the grade levels to use each time.”
Slater Principal Dr. Salina Dukes-Walton noted that the school had been trying to secure a playground for six years, and when physical-education teacher John Beliard approached her three years ago with his own project for, “I didn’t lose hope, I just thought, ‘here’s another staff member applying for a grant, so why not?’ ” Beliard fought back tears as he thanked everyone who made the project happen — including frequent APS partner KaBOOM!, which previously supervised playground builds this year at Peyton Forest and Fickett elementary schools.
Beliard helped fulfill a key element to the grant — raising $7,500 from the Slater community — by reaching out to faculty and staff members, each of whom gave as much as $150 to reach the goal. “From day one, I told the students about the importance of this playground,” Beliard said. “The kids have been asking about this all the time: ‘Coach, why don’t we have a playground?'”