More than 200 volunteers, including a large contingent from UNC Asheville’s Athletics Department, recently came together to build a new playground for Oakley Elementary School in Asheville.
The playground is the seventh built in North Carolina as a collaborative effort between KaBOOM!, a national nonprofit organization, and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina (BCBSNC).
“Play is an important part of staying healthy,” said King Prather, senior vice president and general counsel of BCBSNC and UNC Asheville’s board chair. “Playgrounds are classrooms. They are classrooms for wellness, classrooms for confidence, for character, for teamwork, for integrity, and so I’d like to thank KaBOOM! for recognizing that. I’m excited that UNC Asheville was able to send so many volunteers over. I talked with Athletic Director Janet Cone as soon as I found out that this year’s build was going to be in Asheville, and Janet was all over it immediately.”
Cone came to volunteer as did many UNC Asheville athletics staff members, including Head Women’s Soccer Coach Michelle Demko. “We got together as coaches and said that we would like a health connection in our work with youth in the community this year – getting everyone to move more. And when we as a department had this opportunity to give back to the community, everybody was on board 100 percent.”
The well-organized building scene was impressive, with more than 200 people broken into teams to construct different areas. It brought together people of different ages and abilities – parents, teachers, neighbors, coaches and 115 BCBSNC employees who came by bus from the Triangle area. “The process of the community coming together and building a playground is just heartwarming,” said Oakley Elementary Principal Danny Fusco. “To see people working together for the children of our school, pulling together as a community, I’m on cloud nine.”
As everyone readied for work, they got a welcome from Cindy McMahon, a member of the Buncombe County Schools Board of Education. “What a great day! I’ve got my work gloves and boots. I’m ready to make this happen with all of you. Thank you so much for being here, UNC Asheville, all of our school volunteers, our community volunteers!”
Also ready for work was UNC Asheville Chancellor Mary K. Grant, who said, “This is a great day in bringing UNC Asheville deeper into the community. We’re already talking with the principal and the teacher who wrote the playground grant, who is an alum, about bringing the kids over for a day at UNC Asheville, building upon this important work today. So thank you to Blue Cross Blue Shield – our Board Chair King Prather is a champ and a leader in community endeavors. We have a playground to build today, which is really exciting.”
April Alexander, the fourth grade teacher who wrote the grant and led the playground effort was there working, helping “make this dream come true” for her students.
And perhaps most excited of all was Alexander’s student Sare Koruk, who together with her schoolmates, wrote letters about why they needed a playground, and participated in the playground design. “We drew designs of our dream playgrounds,” she said. “The pictures that we drew were used to help the playground designers in Washington D.C. come up with three different playgrounds for our school. The students looked at the three designs and voted on the final playground that will be built at our school. That is the playground all of you will be building for us today. … Everybody deserves to play. … Thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”