PLAYGROUND SAVED
Playground finds new home at Jubilee school
Miners’ Memorial Playground moves to Jubilee.
A playground that once looked like it would be left unused at the former St. Joseph school now has a new life and a new home.
The Miners Memorial Playground was moved from the former elementary school and installed at Jubilee Elementary School in Sydney Mines at the end of November.
“The first day the playground was installed at the school you couldn’t see the equipment with the number of children on it,” said Kate Taylor-Young, cochair of the Save Miners Memorial Playground committee. “The kids are over the moon about the playground being back — it’s really created another space that’s accessible to them.”
Concerns surrounding the playground were raised after the Cape Breton-Victoria Regional School Board announced the closure of St. Joseph’s elementary in April 2016, combining close to 400 students at Jubilee.
“One of the very first questions we had was what’s going to happen with the playground,” said Taylor-Young. “It was really important to make sure that both schools were combining … and that means taking something old from each school and putting it together.”
The Save Miners Memorial Playground committee was formed in June 2016 with the goal of saving and moving the playground equipment.
The committee initially thought the move would be a six-month project and hoped to have the equipment installed before the 2016-17 school year, but the group ran into a number of issues.
“I didn’t know the first thing about moving a playground and nobody else did either,” said Taylor-Young. “As community members we were trying to gather as much information as possible and determine what the course of action was going to be, determine the rules and regulations on those and then figure out a plan.”
Eight years ago the playground was built, costing approximately $100,000 to install the all-access equipment next to St. Joseph’s. It was a project made possible through Let Them Be Kids, an Ontario-based initiative that helps communities build playgrounds.
“It’s a huge relief to have the playground here because the longer (St. Joseph’s) was sitting empty, the more concerned we were getting that something might happen to it or the building would be sold,” said Taylor-Young.
The move and installation of the playground at Jubilee cost about $30,000, with money raised through fundraisers, sponsorship and donations from the community.
“The kids asked about the playground every single day because they wanted it,” said Taylor-Young. “To be able to bring something from their history and put it here and kind of have the closure of that last chapter is huge.
“There wasn’t anything we didn’t do, we sold hotdogs, we did everything we could just to try to get the money together because we were coming to a crisis point and everybody was happy to give at the same time.”
Taylor-Young, who attended St. Joseph’s and has two children currently attending Jubilee, said the children were involved throughout the process.
“The kids were seeing each piece as it went up every single day, from the ground work being done, as the footers were being put in, they were seeing it being built — the excitement grew,” she said.
“Some of the grandparents worked for the company that was doing the installation for us, so it was really great because the grandfathers were here helping and that was their grandchildren they were really doing it for.”
The new playground, located behind the school, will be used by the Grade 3-5 students, while Grade Primary-2 students will use the playground at the front of the school.
Prior to the move, the equipment was vandalized at St. Joseph’s after somebody spraypainted graffiti using black paint.
Taylor-Young said the committee is working to have the paint removed from the equipment and the issue will be solved in the short term.