With computers fired up, the parents and students of Frank Hobbs elementary school are ready and waiting to log online this Tuesday.
Oct. 10 is the first of the 10-day voting window for Frank Hobbs’ entry to win $62,000 towards a new playground through the Aviva Community Fund.
The project is called Together in Harmony, and if the school wins, its new playground would include an outdoor classroom and an acoustic chime pathway connecting the new play structure with the woods.
“The name was chosen to celebrate our diverse school community, we have a lot of languages and cultures coming together here,” said Andrea Frost from the PAC. “There’s a lot of students from nearby UVic families as well as a more established neighbourhood.”
Frank Hobbs’ parent advisory commitee started fundraising for a replacement playground in 2014 and are up to $78,000. It’s about $23,000 short of the main project estimate $101,677. With the Aviva contest, they seek an additional $62,000 to cover that shortfall and add the sensory pathway, outdoor classroom, an interactive art feature and other accessores.
To date, Frank Hobbs has one of the last remaining wooden playground structures from decades past.
“We already lost our slide, and the playground has wiggly wobbly bars,” said Grade 5 student Abiha Naseer. “A new playground will have sturdy bars and a bigger play area, and a slide.”
The slide is something Naseer laments. There was one but its was recently deemed unsafe and removed. The cracking logs are also near their expiry date, and are the delight of wood-chewing wasps, to the surprise of summer visitors.
Voting runs Oct. 10 to 19 at avivacommunityfund.org/voting/project/view/17-255.
