The old playground at Eckville Elementary School has been torn down in anticipation for the new one.
Eckville’s GTI Petroleum donated the work to remove the old equipment, add fencing, as well as cleaning up the site and prepping it for the new playground.
“Without this donation we definitely wouldn’t be able to build this year because we would still be like $50,000 short and it just made all the difference,” said Rose Marie Smith, vice president of the Eckville Fundraising Society.
She explained the society had sent out sponsorship information packages to businesses around town when the GTI came forwarding offering to do $50,000 worth of work for the new playground.
“They have been fabulous supporters of anything to do with our school and they are great in the community,” Smith said, “the business will support any fundraiser we do, like our flower fundraiser, they’ll buy flowers for their staff.”
She explained the GTI is very “community-minded” and they always try to support the society anyway they can.
“It’s huge what they’re doing… it’s huge, so huge,” added Smith.
Demolition of the old playground took place last week and the preparation of the site for the new equipment is set to go ahead next week.
The building of the new playground is anticipated for the first week of August depending on weather and shipment arrivals.