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Kids approve this project Mail Tribune / Bob Pennell Twirling monkey bars were among items on the students� wish list for a new playground at Elk Trail Elementary School. The playground, done just in time for this school year, is the product of a team effort by Trail residents, businesses, school staff and students. Trail school�s playground was community effort By Vicki Guarino TRAIL � It took five years of community fund raising and one year of classroom-by-classroom lobbying, voting and negotiating, but a little woodland elementary school has reopened this fall with a big, bright, new playground. Kids say it was worth the effort. "I like that blue part," says Elk Trail Elementary School second-grader Samantha Spicer. "You climb up and there�s a slide thingy on the other side." The slide thingy, actually a double slide, was one of the pieces that a key voting block of Elk Trail students fought long and hard for last year, as playground project organizer Billie Garrigus remembers. The adults let students make all of the major planning decisions in this construction project. The idea for the new playground at the Eagle Point School District�s distant elementary school came up years ago. A swing set, climbing dome and merry-go-round sit in a clearing that turns soggy in winter rains and dusty in the fall and spring. But the financial demands of the classroom made it unlikely that the school district would ever be able to foot the bill for the new playground. So parents and staff took over, says Garrigus, a kindergarten aide and school custodian. The Parent Teacher Organization held yard sales, raffles and other events to raise about $20,000 for the equipment. Garrigus said the group turned to businesses to provide the drainage system, paved walkways, and wood-chip play surface, and counted on volunteers to supply labor to get the installation done. "So really, I think it probably came to more than $20,000," she says. To ensure happy customers, Garrigus and her team decided to hand over the equipment catalogs and cost lists to students and let them decide what they wanted. A costly triple slide had to go, students reluctantly agreed. They settled on the double slide. Results of the playground politicking include twirling monkey bars, a bridge of spinning blue saucers, a climbing wall, a trolley kids call the "flying squirrel" that carries them a short distance across the playground, plus assorted ladders, bars and platforms � all of it yellow, blue and red metal and plastic. For the one third-grader who gets around by wheelchair, the other 180 or so other students insisted on wheelchair access for him. "He uses it," says aide Sharon Sherva. "He scoots. I put his braces on and he scoots up there and climbs around. And he�s not afraid of anything.�� As in any political process, students like third-grader Savannah Audley say they didn�t get everything they wanted. Disappointments seem to be fading fast, however. "I forgot which one it was I wanted," says Savannah, "but these are fun." Obituaries | Sports | Business | Classifieds | Tempo | Prime Times | So Oregon Sites | Outdoor Journal | Subscribe | Contact | Movies | Advertise | Real Estate Showcase | Archive | Editorials | Letters to the editor | Religion | Wake-up Call | NIE | Cyber Chef | Job Network | So Oregon Weather | WSJ Northwest | Forums | AP Wire | AP Money | F.A.Q. | Awards Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. The Community Newspaper Subsidiary of Dow Jones & Co, Inc Copyright �The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA