After many months of planning and fundraising - and a day of building - children in Bishop’s Falls were let loose on the new playground in the west end of Bishop’s Falls and the face-lifted playground at Helen Tulk Elementary at 4 p.m. on Saturday.
“We lined the children up and said ‘OK, now the playground is yours’ and they all ran to it,” said Wayne Mills, co-chair of the local Let Them Be Kids committee.
Mr. Mills said there were approximately 220 volunteers at one site, and 50 at the other on Saturday – working at building playgrounds from morning until late afternoon.
“It was totally awesome,” Mr. Mills said, adding the organizing committee in charge of build day did a great job, helping everything run smoothly. He said the task-at-hand was broken down into seven sections, with a lead person at each section, and people took care of the food, even passing out hot dogs and hamburgers at each site.
“It was just overwhelming support,” Mr. Mills said. “It blew us out of the water. I expected support, but I just didn’t expect as much as we got. I didn’t expect that the people would be as co-operative as they were.
“It was totally awesome.” - Wayne Mills
“I think as much as we talked about it, and I’d say even for myself, I expected some good things, but once you see it in reality, it’s a major lift. The sense of pride and the sense of community, just people feel proud to be part of the community and proud to be part of the actual committee.
Along with building, there was face painting and games of chance for the children, and entertainment at both sites.
Mr. Mills said the feeling around town is extremely positive.
“Everybody is still on a high from the actual build day and leading up to it,” he said, adding the children were extremely pleased with the finished product.
“And pretty hyper,” he added. “With the food and the chocolate and ice cream, when they were ready to jump aboard, they certainly had no problem doing that.”
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