The playground at the northeast end of Clark Park is quite modest, a small slide and monkey bars.
But to the students from Stratford Hall school across the street, it’s a treasure, the place where they go for recess. And when the Vancouver parks board announced this spring that it was going to tear the aging playground down, the school, and the kids, swung into action.
Stratford Hall went to the parks board and asked if it could raise funds for a new playground, which is at Commercial Drive and 14th in East Vancouver. The park board said OK.
The goal was to raise $250,000 by Nov. 1. The school set up a website (www.saveclarkpark.com) and started staging events, and have raised $205,000 in a month.
“Yesterday we had a bake sale that raised $2,300,” said Samantha Gayfer, the school’s director of community development.
“It’s been crazy. We’ve had little (kindergarten students) do lemonade stands on their street. We had another kindie selling samosas.
“I got an email today from a mom whose child is home sick today. She said he just came up and said ‘I want to give all the money in my piggy bank to Clark Park.’
“She sent me a picture of him sitting at the table, counting out his piggy bank. It’s just been incredible.”
Stratford Hall is a not-for-profit school that has 521 students from kindergarten to grade 12. But it has no schoolyard, so they go to Clark Park for outdoor exercise.
“Everybody likes to play on it,” said Leyla Bauman, nine.
“It’s a really good thing for our community. I think we should save it, so we can we have an even better park.”
Seth Press concurs.
“I think they should tear it down, because it’s getting really old,” said the nine-year-old.
“But I think we should build a new one, because if there’s no (playground) all of us will come out here and will have nowhere to play. Also it would be better if we had a bit more stuff, since it’s pretty small.”
The playground at the northeast corner of Clark Park is 25 years old. Students from nearby Stratford Hall school would like to see more facilities.
Tiina Mack is the manager of park development at the Vancouver park board. She said the park board has been doing a “condition assessment” on the 159 playgrounds in city parks.
This particular playground may look fine to the untrained eye, but it’s 25 years old. So the park board decided to take it down, and not replace it, because there is another, newer playground at the western end of Clark Park.
The park board is doing a major renewal of playgrounds — it lists 22 on its website. But it only has $1 million per year set aside for playground renewal in its capital budget, so finances are tight.
If the school succeeds in raising $250,000, any plan for a new playground would go through the normal community consultation before it was built.
But the kids are already pretty excited at the prospect of a renewed playground. They even have two student representatives that are consulting the school on what should go into it.
“We have two grade six students, Thomas and Owen, who are meeting with us on a bi-weekly basis to talk about what the kids would like to see the playground morph into,” said Gayfer.
“They’ve been going through playground catalogues, looking at structures. They have a preference for the things that look like they would blend in to the natural surroundings, rock climbing walls and things like that.
“A grade 10 student is creating a 3-D rendering, 3-D modelling of what a play structure might look like. He’s been connected with a (playground) company — I think it’s the CEOs, a husband and a wife — and they’re working with him. It’s really spurred student action, which is amazing.’
