PLAYGROUND VOLUNTEERS: More than 200 volunteers are scheduled to gather
at Lafayette Academy on Carrollton Avenue on Sunday to build a new
playground for students. The donated playground, valued at $150,000,
is based on drawings provided by the school's students.
The effort is spearheaded by KaBOOM!, a national nonprofit committed
to building 100 playgrounds in Gulf Coast communities affected by last
year's hurricanes. Earlier this year, they constructed a playground at
Green Charter School.
Sunday's event also is sponsored by the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association
and the Choice Foundation, which operates Lafayette Academy, one of 31
public charter schools open in the city. teacher Belinda Walters had
her students study different time periods and create things people of
each era might have created. It was Walters’ idea to build the
prehistoric cave.
“The children go into the cave and read different books about
the Stone Age,” Walters said. “It’s great because it
gives them incentive to be good. They also created timelines that their
parents can flip through and they can flip through as well, to see what
other children did and get fresh ideas.
“Paragon is a very hands-on program, which the children love.
I like it because it shows them how we started and how we have progressed
to where we are today.”
Learning outside the classroom is just as important as absorbing lessons
inside the school’s walls, Drozdowski said, which is where the
school’s new playground comes in.
“When I came down here in May, the first thing I saw was that
we didn’t have a playground,” he said. “These kids
have to have a life outside of school.”
To construct the 2,340-square-foot, $150,000-playground, the Choice
Foundation partnered with the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association and
Kaboom, a nonprofit dedicated to building 100 playgrounds across the
Gulf Coast by 2007.
“We have also raised $250,000 so far for the school and we are
just getting started,” Huger said. “Community and parent
involvement is key to the success of this school. Forever and a day,
people viewed New Orleans Public Schools at a distance. It’s time
for them to get involved. Lafayette Academy is a good example of that
involvement paying off.”• |
