5-year-old leads charge to create eco-friendly park
By Rob Daniel
Iowa City Press-Citizen
June 21, 2008

Last fall, Jim Cochran's next-door neighbor, Jay Dean, planned to get rid of the backyard playground he had built for his children years ago.

Cochran offered to take it, and his 5-year-old son, Sebastian, had some ideas of what to do with it.

"I just thought about it," Sebastian said.

The end result was a playground in his backyard that was enjoyed by the family and the entire neighborhood Friday afternoon. Using motifs ranging from Noah's Ark to a treehouse, Sebastian, his father, his father's girlfriend, Lisa DeShano, and neighbors and friends transformed a basic wooden structure into the ultimate playland that is fun and ecologically friendly in that it was built with roughly 95 percent recycled materials.

"It's saving the environment," DeShano said. "It's more than saving money." [More]

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