A new nature-inspired, accessible playground for North Oyster is now in the hands of voters.
École North Oyster Elementary has captured a spot as a top 10 finalist in the BCAA Play Here contest, which is giving away three $100,000 prizes for play spaces. It’s up to voters to help select the winners.
School principal Jacqueline Dunn said the parent advisory committee has been trying to raise money for a playground for years, it’s expensive and a lot of work has gone into it.
The contest is an “amazing opportunity” to get the playground built in one shot, she said.
Ecole North Oyster is a finalist in the BCAA Play Here contest. Vote and you will help win the $100,000 grand prize! Vote every day until the contest closes on June 17. The school plans to build a nature-inspired, wheelchair accessible playground. GO! https://t.co/P4PhShcVMx pic.twitter.com/RwlL5bmMXp
— School District 68 (@sd68bc) May 29, 2018
The school has grown from 80 students to more than 300 after the closure of École Davis Road in 2014. But there are not a lot of places for kids to play, according to Dunn, who said there are swings and one “tiny, old, yellow playground” mostly used by primary kids, and pieces have fallen off of it in the past. The space, open to other kids and families in the area and used by a daycare centre, also isn’t accessible for everyone because of the gravel surface.
Students have turned to the forest to play, but it’s become degraded from overuse and the school has had to rope off portions to let it grow back.
“It’s causing degradation to the local environment and then we see kids too just walking around and talking and not being physically active because they have nowhere to play,” Dunn said. “For us to be able to improve their opportunities for physical activities would be so amazing for their health and well-being.”
In a new playground, children could slide down a clover-covered mound and scamper over nature-inspired climbing obstacles, and there would be a paved path for wheelchairs with accessible play like a learning wall, spinning disc and a swing.
École North Oyster student Giles Southwell, 7, said to have a new playground would mean a lot. He’d like something new in the school and he wants his mom to come play with him, something Southwell said his mom can’t quite do now because she’s in a scooter.
Lily Schaan, 9, said she’s been going around asking for people’s votes.
“I would like people to vote because then we’d have a whole bunch of new playground equipment and people in the wheelchairs can play on it, everyone is included,” she said.
The PAC has raised $35,000 for the playground, including with money from the school district. The $100,000 from BCAA Play Here would allow construction to start this summer, according to Chrissie Stephen, play space committee member.
“There’s no playground within seven kilometres of our school and so to be able to provide a nature-inspired, wheelchair accessible playground to Cedar, Ladysmith, Stz’uminus, to all those communities, it’d be such a big deal,” she said. “[People] can have such an impact by voting.”
North Oyster is the only finalist from the Nanaimo-Ladysmith school district.
People can vote through Facebook, Twitter, Google and e-mail, amounting to four votes daily, if they’re over 19 and live in B.C. Visit www.bcaaplayhere.com.
-video submitted to BCAA Play Here by École North Oyster
