ST. BERNARD COMMUNITY PLAYGROUND BUILD SUCCESSFUL

Work not quite done;

More skilled volunteers will be needed for a subsequent build

Close to 1,000 volunteers worked Wednesday through Sunday to re-boot, re-pair and re-build the community playground in Torres Park damaged by Hurricane Katrina and burned in an arson fire in January 2008. Some work will need to be finished at a later date, but project leaders are thrilled with this week’s effort at the Chalmette park.

Project coordinator Polly Boudreaux said volunteers came from across the United States to work side by side with St. Bernard Parish residents trying to restore this important community asset damaged by Katrina and further destroyed by arson.

“I think it went very well,” said Boudreaux, an educator and mother of two who coordinated the initial build in April 2003 with 1,200 volunteers. “We have had a lot of help with the grunt work. Our biggest lack has been in skilled labor.”

The 14,000 square foot St. Bernard Community Playground/Amphitheatre in Torres Park has been closed because of damage from Katrina in 2005 and a fire on Jan. 1, 2008. Boudreaux said the numbers of volunteers and the enthusiasm was every bit as strong as it was for the first build.

“They were unbelievable,” she said.

“This is why we are going to succeed as a parish” in our recovery, said St. Bernard Parish President Craig P. Taffaro Jr., who made restoring the park a priority for his first 100 days in office.

Boudreaux said the park was never restored since Katrina because it was shielded from site – making it an easy site for would-be arsonists – by travel trailers that housed parish employees after the storm but were mostly empty for several months before Taffaro took office in mid-January. Less than two weeks after taking office, Taffaro had the trailers moved away as promised so the parish could reclaim the park and rebuild the playground. He also encouraged employees to donate work shifts to volunteer at the playground and spent a good deal of time himself at the rebuild.

Boudreaux said the numbers of volunteers and the numbers of those who donated food and supplies was phenomenal. Two on-site supervisors from Leathers Associates, the firm that designed and oversees the building of the playground as it does for communities across the country, said St. Bernard’s effort served their volunteers the best food. While most barn-raising style efforts offer pizza and sandwiches to the volunteers, the community businesses supported the effort with everything from fried catfish, spaghetti and meatballs, to sushi to alligator sausage.

Boudreaux said local and out of town groups made a large difference in making the effort successful. Corporations and volunteer groups include Entergy, Shell Oil, Capital One, Gulf Coast, St. Bernard Parish Government, Chalmette High, LSU Ag Center 4H, First Baptist New Orleans Youth Group, Lockheed Martin, St. Bernard Sheriff’s Office and out of town groups from Vermont and Wisconsin among others. Students from Chalmette High School and the children from local Cub Scout Pack 11 came as well.

On Saturday, a bus with more than 100 Catholic sisters, priests and brothers in town for a meeting of the Vincentian Family volunteered for several hours.

However, the effort really lacked enough skilled labor to complete the build on large items such as repairing the center shade pavilion inside the playground that suffered fire damaged, Boudreaux said. Two adjacent birthday pavilions are framed but need to be completed.

The Community Playground Committee will organize another volunteer build to complete that work as well as other finishing details, she said. Last week, volunteers repaired hardware, swings and rebuilt the front entrance to the playground that was destroyed by the fire. It now includes a new section encompassing an interactive tree fort and wheelchair accessible play areas.

A limited number of pickets for the fence around the playground continue to be sold for $25 as a fundraiser for the project. Pickets from the 2003 build will remain and those destroyed by the hurricane or fire will be replaced.

Playground t-shirts are now available for $10.

Donations have been generously provided by the following community entities: the Meraux Foundation, Senator Walter Boasso, SDT Waste Services, Frank Silva, St. Bernard Recreation Corporation, Aaron’s Donuts, Delacroix Corporation, Rozas-Ward Architects, Dorothy Benge, Mabel Isabel Molero Quatroy Living Trust, Domino - American Sugar, Melinda Benge Brown, Home Depot and Entergy. Mail your donation to St. Bernard Community Playground Project, P.O. Box 1632, Chalmette, LA 70044. Any funds remaining after build expenses will be used for exciting summer programming opportunities such as puppet theatre, storytelling, outdoor movie nights, and concerts.

To volunteer as a group or as an individual, e-mail communityplaygroundproject@yahoo.com or call Lauren Faust at 278-4234. Also, Boudreaux is available at pboudreaux5@yahoo.com.

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