The build date for the Ava Community Playground is in October of 2011–we’re building on a piece of land adjacent to the MOCH Wellness Center and are very excited about this project to benefit the children of the Ava and surrounding areas.
The first edition of the Playground’s Newsletter was distributed last week to all the Ava Elementary and Plainview students. We’ve been meeting to plan our fundraising activities for the year. To kick off the fundraising, area students have been asked to bring in empty and washed milk jugs which will be exchanged for money for the playground. A Buy-A-Board Challenge was also initiated. With the sale of each board, each child that sold one will receive a popsicle stick with their name on it that will be hung along the walls of the school in an attempt to wrap around the entire elementary school. This will be super fun for the kids and give them a visual on how they are helping in such a big way to build the playground.
Our kids are responsible for naming the playground. Each class has been asked to suggest a name, they will then vote on one name per grade, and then we will have a big vote involving businesses and the community. The classes have until Feb. 1 to submit their favorite playground name.
Playground Volunteers were in front of Wal-Mart on Saturday, 1/15 between 10 a.m.-2 p.m. distributing the newsletter, answering questions, and registering volunteers. Hundreds of newsletters were distributed and there was also a design of the playground available for the community to see exactly what it’s going to look like.
Core Committee meetings will be held on Thursday nights from 5 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. To find out more information about the playground, contact Jessica Jenkins @ 417-343-5703 or on the playground website at www.avaplayground.com.
