News | Article
from Fontana Herald News
Children's lobbying pays off with
dream playground at North Tamarind Park
by Bob Otto
Fontana (June 28, 2007) - Late in 2006, the third
grade students of Molly Gentile's North Tamarind Elementary
School English Language Development class took on a lobbying
effort.
And they targeted Mayor Mark Nuaimi.
The North Tamarind Park next to their school looked drab, the
bathrooms were run down, and the park wasn't much fun for kids.
We need playground equipment, they pleaded to the mayor.
Could he help?
"They really got organized with drawings, pictures, and they
wrote a good letter to the mayor," said North Tamarind Principal
Jason Angle.
The kids' lobbying paid off. The mayor carried their message
forward and became the children's advocate, said Angle.
The city put on the hard hat and pulled out the checkbook,
spending about $155,000 on new bathrooms, curbing and ramps, and
wheelchair accessibility, said Deputy Public Works Director
Chuck Hays.
But that was just the beginning. Much more was yet too come
-- especially the fun part.
On June 21, a room full of North Tamarind student "designers"
turned on their creative imaginations in a "My Dream Playground"
planning session. Their ideas, tempered with some adult
practicality, will become the blue print for a new playground at
the park.
The North Tamarind Park runs deep and wide. Tall trees with
leaf-covered branches spread wide to provide cooling shade on a
hot day. There's plenty of green grass and wide-open space to
run and tumble. But it falls far short in what young children
want most -- playground equipment.
One multi-use unit has three slides, some monkey bars, but no
swings. There's not a swing to be found in the park. Is the park
fun? Not very much, said some of the children at the planning
session.
But they've got plenty of ideas to improve the situation. We
want volleyball courts, bike trails, covered slides and swings,
a rock-climbing wall, and even colorful trash cans, said
students by way of the drawings they made of "My Dream
Playground."
Vanessa Quintero, 8, wants swings, a waterslide, and a
trampoline. Dylan George, 8, wants a park with an "African Rain
Forest" theme. "I want monkey bars, a vine swing with a bridge
that goes to a snake chamber," he said.
Dylan's mother, April George, smiled at her son's enthusiasm.
But as for the park, April said she's been coming to the school
for nine years, beginning with her daughter when she attended
North Tamarind. "This will be the first improvement," she said.
The park improvement project is a shared effort between the
Inland Empire United Way's Hands On initiative, The Home Depot,
KaBoom! (a national organization that provides playground
equipment to communities), and the City of Fontana. The Home
Depot will provide about 200 volunteers, KaBoom! will furnish
$75,000 in playground equipment (which the city will match, said
Hays), and Hands On will provide some of the leadership to pull
the venture together.
And on Aug. 28, 29, and 30, the children's dream park will
become reality as more than 250 volunteers armed with tools,
supplies, and playground equipment will transform the park into
a fun place for kids.
Ruth Zuniga has taught at North Tamarind for 14 years. For
families, the park is the gathering spot -- the only gathering
spot in the neighborhood.
"We have nowhere else close to take our children," said
Zuniga. "This will be a place for children and their parents to
have fun. This will be perfect."
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