Saturday, April 11, 2009

Playground Restoration Project (Getting Started)

Maryna and Nastya
Maryna and Nastya putting on the finishing touches

Today was the day we had scheduled to fix up the playground outside of our apartment. Unfortunately, the team from Pryluky had to cancel at the last minute. (We are hoping that they can still come at the end of the month though to help with the big stuff.) We decided to start on the playground since all the children were expecting us to be working on it and we had most of the materials we needed. (I spent yesterday replacing the missing and rotting wood and securing everything that was coming loose on the climbing structure.) We figured there would be some kids that would want to help out and we weren't disappointed. There were more than enough kids who were willing to remove graffiti, scrape paint, and slap on the bright new stuff.

The only problem we had were the really small children who were drawn to the shiny new (and still wet) paint like flies on honey. Some parts on the structure had to be painted three times. Some of the parents just weren't fast enough to prevent their little ones from getting yellow and blue hands. I finally had to post some of the kids on the playground to guard the freshly painted climbing structure until I could put a barrier around it. Even then a few curious little ones had to be shooed away by the bigger kids.

We are looking forward to spending time with the neighborhood kids working on the playground together. Some of them made me promise to let them paint after school next week so it looks like I'll have plenty of little helping hands. Thanks to everyone who helped us out with the costs to begin restoring this once beautiful playground.

Playground Restoration Project
Before

Playground Restoration Project
After - Amazing what a little paint can do

3 comments:

The Claycamps in Ukraine said...

Looks great, guys! What a great way to show God's love. Hey, are you guys coming to visit next week? Do you want to stay with us?

Jeni said...

That looks awesome! I can't wait to see the final final with all of the park!

Greg and Edna Silva said...

I'm just grateful that all the kids want to help. Hopefully people will take better care of the playground since they see that all of the children have been working on it.

-Greg