On the one hand, a Seattle Public School teacher strike is looking very likely to be called tonight given the latest reports from the bargaining teams. Bleah. On the other hand, a new playground!
Greg Lewis writes:
A few months ago, the John Stanford Playground Improvement Committee applied to the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods for a large project matching grant to implement a neighborhood improvement project on the JSIS school site. Large project grants can be awarded up to $100,000 and require a 1:1 match in value. The match can be comprised of cash and volunteer hours, with most volunteer hours valued at $20/hour.
I am very pleased to announce that our project was recommended for a $100,000 matching grant!!! What does this mean? In a few weeks the City Neighborhood Council will formally present our project to the Mayor and the City Council for final approval. Once approved, we’ll need to demonstrate our matching obligation by the end of the year.
Did you know Seattle Public Schools does not provide any funding for Playground improvements?
Did you know JSIS has one of the smallest playgrounds in the district?
Our playground is used by over 450 school children per day, as well as the surrounding community.
Our older playground equipment is now 20 years old and has required many repairs. It is designed for children 5-8 years old and does not meet the needs of older students.
The current design of our raised play area creates barriers to access, takes up valuable space on our crowded playground and has been a source of injuries.
Did you know a group of students circulated a petition to improve the playground? They obtained over 300 of their classmates signatures!
This grant offers the Wallingford community an amazing and rare opportunity to make large scale improvements to this neighborhood playground!
Large project matching grants are extremely competitive. We were one of 12 selected out of of over 30 applicants. There are many, many worthy projects in the city.
Lets make the most of this!!
The next step critical step in this project will be fundraising!
To make the improvements needed, our goal is to raise at least $60,000 by December of this year!
To learn more about the project and how you can get involved, come to our next community meeting on Monday Sept 14th at 6:30 pm in the JSIS cafeteria.
Can’t come to the meeting? Want to volunteer or donate? Visit our blog site to find out more:
http://jsisplayground.blogspot.com
Come join us for our first Community meeting to discuss the playground plans.
Monday October 5th at 630pm in the school lunch room.
I promise to keep it short so we can get back to watching the Seahawks!