Our Playground and Mandela Day

There is a large, grassed playground next to the school building and the shade trees the Harold Porter Botanical Garden donated are growing slowly, but steadily.

The fence on the north-west side, where shrubs have been planted, has been reinforced with shade cloth - that was a job to secure it - so the children can go outside in the wind and have a chance of staying on their feet.

There are paved paths laid out so the children can take turns to ride the motor bikes and there is a large, covered sand pit. The children enjoy the jungle gym and standing on the platform which gives them a view from on high. They all enjoy the swings and running and chasing one another and more often than not at Christmas time one of the school’s supporters in Betty’s Bay, sponsors a slippery slide as a gift to the children which is set up on the lawn in the playground to the delight of all.

Mandela Day coming up in July, in memory of his vision of a united and peaceful South Africa, has become an opportunity for NGOs to ask South Africans to give their time to assist with maintenance or project development to help NGOs continue with their outreach programmes without having to pay for it.

That’s out of the question this year because we can’t ask you to gather and risk your wellbeing.

We wondered instead if we could ask you to take a look through your garages and back yards, especially if you have a business, and see if you have:

- poles or tyres

- dome head coach bolts or washers or lock nuts

If you do, we would be infinitely grateful to you if you could donate them to help us build more challenging playground equipment in our playground. (Please see photos attached)

Often poles and tyres are lying in a garage or shed ‘in case they will be needed for something’.

More demanding play equipment is not just for fun but necessary to help the children develop dexterity. They have very little opportunity to exercise their bodies in general.

Step two will be to assemble the materials - when we have them.

(We are also approaching retailers of playground equipment in the hopes that they may be able to help us in some way to acquire professional climbers).

If you have any questions or want more information, please contact Rosemary Fowkes.

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