ENFIELD: The current school year isn’t even done yet, and Charlee Smith is already eagerly anticipating school being back in September.
That’s because the young Enfield girl, who is in a wheelchair so has some accessibility needs, has a good reason.
You see when school returns to Enfield District School in September, it’s anticipated a new accessible playground will have been installed allowing Charlee to play with her friends or others who also have accessibility issues to play on the new playground.
“I’m really happy because we’re getting an accessible playground,” said Charlee outside the school under the warm sunshine. “That means if we get it everyone who comes to Enfield school with a disability can play too.
“I’m excited and can’t wait for September.”
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Charlee got the news of the new playground to come to the school on Friday morning June 13 during an unplanned assembly—held early enough so it wouldn’t interfere with gym class.
At the assembly, Charlee and her peers at the school learned from Hants East MLA John A. MacDonald that the province would contribute $150,000 towards the accessible playground construction. The school had raised $32,000 through fundraisers with the PTA and SAC, along with local sponsors.
The Municipality of East Hants is also contributing $52,000 towards the project.
Charlee and her mom Chelsea had initially been told the playground project was denied funding, but then they wrote to MacDonald, and he managed to get the province on board.
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She was told that her hard work led to the announcement happening at the school.
“All the hard work started with me because I needed an accessible playground so I could play on it with my friends,” said Charlee.
All the fundraising over the past two years that the school did went on to the playground fund.
Heather von Kintzel, the principal at the school, said it was a full team effort.
“We could not have made this happen without the support of our school, family of school supervisor Tina Knol and Regional Executive director Karen Cooling backing and supporting everything we did as well” she said.
MacDonald said this type of announcement is what happens when people work together.
“Council and the province have worked together on countless projects, and yes Charlee’s mom had a lot to do with today,” he said. “But also, Charlee wrote a letter as I found out they had gotten a rejection letter that money wasn’t available. I wasn’t happy.
“Charlee wrote a nice letter that her mom gave me, and it led me to a conversation with some people telling them they needed to find some money to make this happen.”
“I got emotional reading your letter Charlee, so it made it pretty easy for me to jump and get them the money.”
The tender for the project is out and will close July 3, Cooling said.
This means the playground is expected to be completed hopefully when school returns in September or shortly after.
