Rainbow Lake Playground May Update
So…we’re a little late getting out the most recent update on playground construction because, well, you know. This happened. A lot.
With a couple of weeks of nonstop rain, construction on Rainbow Lake Playground has had to slow down or stop for days at a time. With no shelter on the job site, crews not only have to sit out the storms, they have to wait for their equipment and work areas to dry out.
Luckily, though, the sun has started to smile on the project, and things are happening at a whirlwind pace. The wooden climbing structure is taking shape quickly, with the wheelchair-accessible ramps already installed and new wooden beams going in all the time. Once the beams are all in place, the wood will be finished and some small climbing nets added.
The Big Green Mound is almost complete, with final grading of the dirt over the middle of the hollow tree happening this week. Sod will then be added to the top, in the hopes that grass will have grown in nicely by the time the playground opens. The slide has been installed, and the view from the top will make kids feel like they’ve conquered the park.
Now that artist Bernhard Meck has put the final touches on the hollow tree for The Big Green Mound, he’s moved on to another tree-themed project: The Mighty Oak, a concrete structure built to resemble a hollowed-out stump for kids to play in. Following that, he’ll work on one of the two sound sculptures (the other, built by the National Ornamental Metal Museum, is complete and will be installed soon).
Volunteers are pitching in as well. One fun component of the new playground is a “building-block” area where kids will have access to some movable objects that they can stack and move around. We’re reusing scrap materials as the building blocks, including pieces of wood from the old playground’s climbing structure and branches pruned from the park’s crape myrtle trees. Last Friday, volunteers from MOOD: South Central spent their annual company volunteer day sanding down wooden blocks to make them safe and smooth for the kids to play with. Thanks to Charlsei, Buster, Mark, Darryl, Elizabeth, Nicole, and Christian for selecting the park as their community project–they did an amazing job!
Next week, new playground features will start coming in fast and furious: swingsets, tuned drums, the merry-go-round, and the netting for The Spiderwebs climbing structure.
A special thanks to a few of our new sponsors–The Daily News has sponsored The Mighty Oak, and Mike Palazola has sponsored the chess tables! We’re now over the $300,000 mark on our fundraising, which puts us over 75% of our funding goal. Items still available for sponsorship include The Big Green Mound, trees and landscaping, and recycling bins that will ultimately kick off a recycling program throughout the park. Make a gift here.
It’ll be a race to the finish line–June 8’s Day of Merrymaking–but if Mother Nature cooperates, we’ll have something pretty special to show everyone in a few weeks. Thanks so much for your support of this project! We couldn’t do it without you.
