Joe Olenick
Lockport Union-Sun & Journal, N.Y.
Aug. 4, 2008

QUESTION: What happened to the playground?

ANSWER: Well the problem was it's 18 years old, and weather has taken its toll. The safety report said the decks, the horizontal surfaces, basically, had to be replaced. The slides needed to be replaced, and there was some rust that needed to be fixed. Basically, age issues.

Q: How did this group come together? It seemed to come about pretty quickly.

A: Yeah it did. It's a small community, and pretty much everybody that does stuff knows each other. The school board received a safety report from the BOCES (Board of Cooperative Educational Services) wanted it closed until it was fixed. I happened to be at that meeting, and they asked me if the PTA had any input. It basically grew out of there. We put out a call for anyone interested. At the first meeting, we had a good group, a lot of parents. We also had the original chairman of the committee that built it in the first place. She had her original binder with copies of every fundraiser. It had a layout of the gym and who was at each station. [More]

Learn how to form a play committee.