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Community effort Photo by Drew Fleming Dwayne Johnson, left, and Don Kay prepare the top of this spiral slide while Ron Shaffer Jr., top, grabs fencing from Bob Nelson on Sunday. All are parents of kids at Jefferson Elementary School in Medford. At center is Ron Shaffer Sr., head contractor for Ro-Lyn Construction. Teachers and parents build Jefferson kids a playground By BILL KETTLER The women mixed the concrete, and the men dug the holes. Dozens of parents and teachers worked through the weekend to build a $60,000 play structure at Medford's Jefferson Elementary School in south Medford. By Sunday evening, bright red slides hung from shiny black and white frames; climbing ladders rose to horizontal climbing rings; and frames for swing sets were set in concrete. Tamera Johnson couldn't help but smile as thousands of hours of work finally took shape. "We started with a plan and an idea five years ago," said Johnson, president of Jefferson's PTO and chairwoman of the playground committee. Children began raising money for the playground five years ago, selling candy bars and pizza coupons. Johnson and her colleagues used the children's $6,000 as seed money to collect more than $50,000 in grants and support from local businesses. Karen Holt, a parent with grant-writing experience, put together proposals that brought $10,000 from the Carpenter Foundation and from the Cow Creek Seven Feathers Foundation. "Both grants emphasized the time we took," Holt said. "Foundations really like to know you've thought things out." Holt said the foundations also liked the idea of making the play structures accessible to handicapped children. Johnson said the playground is Medford's third accessible playground -- and the only one that has equipment for children up to the age of 12. "Transfer stations" at several points allow wheelchair-bound children to get on the structures. Businesses provided "in-kind" contributions -- excavating the site, supplying cement and trucks. "The community support has been just fantastic," Johnson said. The equipment was designed to provide safe play surfaces. Heat-resistant coatings on metal surfaces will prevent young hands from getting burned on hot days. Metal platforms and grates have been coated with skid-resistant plastics to help kids avoid nasty falls. That doesn't mean the play structure will be boring. Parents shopped around to find a combination of features that will stimulate kids' imaginations and encourage them to play creatively. "Play is a child's work," said Johnson. "It teaches them a sense of community, and how to share, and how to get along." The play structures include horizontal "crossing rings," climbing ladders and chinning bars to give Jefferson's 530 students more places to develop upper body strength. There will be five new slides, including a tunnel slide and a spiral slide that corkscrews to the ground. Children crowded around the project Sunday, watching parents and teachers work. Some even pitched in to mix cement. Several noted the equipment's red, white and black color scheme matches their school colors. Two fourth-graders, Megan Pfeifer and Christina Bonelli, were already thinking of new games they would play on the new equipment. "There's going to be a lot more stuff to do," said Megan. "After you play on everything it gets old after a while. This one has lots more slides." The building crew finished most of the hard work by Sunday afternoon, but the equipment won't be ready for kids until Friday. The area surrounding the equipment will be filled later this week with cooked-and-sanded wood particles that do not splinter. The wood fill, sold under the name of Soft-Fall, compacts to make a firm, but yielding, surface that will make the play structures accessible to wheelchairs. Johnson said wheelchairs can't negotiate the pea gravel that lies beneath most play structures. Kids will like the wood fill better, too, she said. "If you fall on that pea gravel it gets imbedded in your skin." Johnson said the project has taught her and everyone else involved in it the power of patience and persistence. "It's a lot of work," she said, "but if people want a new playground in their schools, they can achieve it." Today's Edition : News | Sports | Business | Weather | Tempo | Classifieds Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA