Parents raise $65,000 for new Pembroke playground
DANBURY — Teachers and parents at Pembroke Elementary School have raised more than $65,000 in contributions toward a new playground over the past six months.
The fundraising puts the team more than a third of the way toward its $150,000 goal to build a playground with equipment that will be more accessible for children with special needs or physical disabilities — the first of its kind within city limits.
“It’s so exciting to see people stepping up,” said Leigh Viviano, a Pembroke special education teacher who has spearheaded the effort. “I guess it’s happening quickly, but I’d like to see it moving even faster.
“It would be so great to be able to put this is motion and have it all finished for the kids when they get back next fall,” she said. “Maybe that’s a little ambitious, but it would be great.”
So far, Viviano and a team of school officials, parents and community members have raised more than $20,000 in cash donations alone for the project.
This fall, Danbury High School athletics let Viviano and her team raise money at home games and even the fifth grade students at Ridgefield’s Scotland Elementary School contributed a $1,000 check to help out.
Hat City Tattoo raised almost $9,300 in one day during a donation drive earlier this fall, Viviano said.
Mayor Mark Boughton and Public Works Director Antonio Iadarola might not be able to contribute cash from the city, but they have agreed that Public Works could use its equipment and staff to help clear the school’s playground, prepare the site and fix some of the drainage issues there.
They estimate that’s about $30,000 worth of work toward the project.
“We’ll definitely give her a hand with it,” Boughton said. “She’s doing a great thing for the district and the city. It’s a great idea and she’s worked so hard on it, so we want to help out.”
Massachusetts-based playground firm Childscapes has designed a set that would include typical climbing equipment and slides, but also ramps, Americans with Disabilities Act compliant swings and a “sensory garden” for special needs students. Rubber playground tiles would replace the traditional mulch floor, making it more accessible for students with physical disabilities.
Next up, school district staff are preparing to receive a $15,000 grant toward the project. State Reps. David Arconti and Michael Ferguson also plan to pitch the project to the state Bond Commission in December as one “Hail Mary” effort to land funding in the final meeting before the next administration starts after the New Year.
At the very least, the project is well on its way to becoming a reality, even if not in Viviano’s accelerated timeline next year, officials said.
Pembroke has one of the highest concentrations of special needs students in the district, with its almost 90 such students making up a quarter of the entire student body, said Viviano, who teaches fourth and fifth grade special needs students.
“It’s really important for these kids, but we do also want it to be for everyone else,” she said. “It’ll be a place for everyone to play.”