Cache Creek Elementary School (CCES) has won $100,000 in playground improvements as part of the BCAA Play Here initiative.
A small group of students, staff, and parents were on hand outside the school at 7:40 a.m. on June 21 to see if they were successful. When the announcement was made live on Global TV that CCES was one of the winners, there were cheers, smiles, and hugs at the realization that several weeks of hard work had paid off.
The school learned at the end of May that it was one of 10 province-wide finalists in Play Here’s third annual campaign, which takes applications from schools and community organizations around the province that would like to see improvements to their playground. That meant that CCES would move into the final round, which saw members of the public able to vote up to four times a day until June 17. Cache Creek Elementary finished in third place in the voting following a “get out the vote” campaign that saw supporters posting daily reminders on social media.
Students also rallied behind the campaign, setting up information tables at local events such as Graffiti Days and the Desert Sands Community School fun fair. They created posters and put them up around Cache Creek, and spent an afternoon on both sides of Highway 97 in town, encouraging passing motorists to vote.
Kindergarten/Grade 1 teacher Millie Cumming put in the application with help from her students. “I saw the BCAA Play Here ad on TV, and that’s where the idea came from. I had heard in the past that Lillooet had won it, so I thought we had a good chance, and said let’s do it.”
Cumming says that the application part was easy, and after that it was the students and community members who worked to keep the campaign in the public eye. “They ran with it. It’s been exciting to see such a small community be able to pull that off. There isn’t a big population to draw on like some of the other entries had, so it’s pretty spectacular to see that happen here.”
Although finishing in the top three for votes was not a guarantee of winning, it showed the community’s support for the bid, which will see the current playground — which got its last new equipment 11 years ago — updated with new play spaces, as well as gardens where students can grow, and learn about, local plants.
The application emphasized the difficult times that the community has had in recent years, and the damage done to the school’s playing fields by flooding. Further damage to the fields was caused when the school was used twice as the operations base for emergency services.
CCES principal Brooke Haller says that it’s been awesome watching the momentum build. “I don’t think any of us expected this level of rallying of support for Cache Creek. We know we’re strong together and that it’s a community that comes out, but it was pretty wild, in such a good way. We were all doing this together. And the kids were so excited. It’s a really cool opportunity to have.”
Haller says that she and Cumming have done some planning, and have had feedback from students about what they want to see in the playground. Next week they will be meeting with planners from Play Here, who will do a needs assessment of the site.
“We’ll share with them what we want, and then we work together. We’re hearing that [the new playground] will happen by September, so that’s pretty cool.”
Grade 4 student Gary Gross was on hand for the announcement, and says he was excited to hear the news. He doesn’t know exactly what it means for the playground, but does know one thing he’d definitely like to see in it: a better slide. He says that he and his classmates have been talking about the campaign and what it could mean for the school, and adds that the first thing he’ll do when school resumes in September is go around and check out at the new playground.
This year’s Play Here initiative has awarded three playground revitalization awards of up to $100,000 each. In addition to Cache Creek Elementary, the winners are École North Oyster School on Vancouver Island and the Mackenzie Recreation Centre/John Dahl Park.
“I think that Cache Creek really needed a win, because we’ve had a pretty lousy string of luck for the last few years,” says Haller. “Millie said it best: happy kids make a happy community, and I think that’s so true.”
