A few minutes before our annual Trunk or Treat on Friday, October 25, children, parents, donors, volunteers, and congregational leaders gathered to dedicate our new Preschool Play Area.

The project was initiated when the Health Foundation of La Porte awarded St. John’s Lutheran School a $24,000 grant, sufficient to install a small play area. It didn’t take many weeks for leadership to decide that this play area would be insufficient for our purposes.

A committee planned a more significant play area and made plans for a project that was nearly three times the size of the original, at least when it came to the budget.  Once initial fundraising indicated strong support for the project (including pledges of more than $15,000), leaders re-designed and expanded the plans, including a white picket fence to segregate the area from other play equipment and add a poured rubber surface in place of pine bark mulch.

When the First Source Foundation stepped up with a $12,000 grant and a congregational leader provided another $5,000 gift, the rubber poured-in-place surface was added and fundraising continued.

By the middle of August, site work was completed by church volunteers and school and church volunteers installed the equipment. It took several weeks to put the stone base in place along with fence posts. In early October the rubber base was installed by an outside contractor and other volunteers worked to complete the fence.

Fence pickets provide a means to thank our donors more tangibly. A few fence pickets still need to be installed and the fourth section of the fence must be completed, but otherwise, the play area is completed and being used nearly every day!