Playground delayed
Students still grateful for progress made
Sarah Ladik
Northern News Services
Thursday, June 16, 2016
INUVIK
After nearly three years of waiting for a playground, what's another few weeks?
Tony Lalonde, left, and Patrick English help put together the new playground equipment at East Three Elementary School June 7. - NNSL file photo
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"The kids were amazed at how fast it was going up," said East Three Elementary School principal Deborah Reid.
"We'll have a grand opening in September when it's all done."
While a crew of volunteers joined a pair of professional installers to assemble the new playground in front of the school over the past few weeks, a few essential parts were missing.
"Some pieces were missing," said Reid.
"At first it was obvious things, like there was supposed to be a pirate ship at one end, and we didn't see it, but then we realized we were missing something like two skids."
The playground was originally ordered nearly three years ago under a different school principal and has been sitting in storage since then, while the school acquired the funding to set it up.
The structure itself, Reid said, cost about $90,000 and was bought on sale for $60,000. It would cost about $50,000 for the installation work.
"That's why they got it and didn't put it up right away," she said.
"We've done it as economically as we can, knowing there are some costs that can't be trimmed. We're dealing with the safety of children."
The missing parts will likely take between four and six weeks to reach Inuvik, which means the professional installers will have to return to the community to complete the work. They considered opening part of the playground until then, after having made sure it was safe for use, but subsequently decided it would be too much unnecessary work to dig out the foundations to add the missing pieces in a few weeks.
"We've had so much help," said Reid, mentioning the likes of the local district education council, the Nihtat Gwich'in Council, and Northwind Industries in the list of groups who pitched in.
"There were a lot of individual volunteers too ... people whose kids don't even go to the school, teachers, the spouses of teachers. At first we thought it would be a lot of work with a rake or shovel, but we ended up needing skilled people to put it together."
Now, a fence donated by a few companies in town has been erected to prevent anyone from going on the playground equipment until it's ready. As for the children who watched their new collective toy come so close to completion, Reid said they are taking it all in stride.
"Our whole school went out to cheer on the workers and thank them," she said.
"The kids have been really understanding and grateful."
