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Parents help score new playground equipment

The Childcare Center at Bandys High School is receiving new playground equipment for children to enjoy. The new equipment is a gift from an area family.

By Sarah Newell Williamson | Hickory Daily Record

Published: November 2, 2009

CATAWBA - A Catawba family recently donated nearly $60,000 to Bandys High School to purchase playground equipment for the child-care center at the school.

"The family has a child they recently enrolled at the day-care center and has a student at Bandys in the 10th grade," said Todd Black, principal at Bandys High School. "They really wanted to help."

Bandys Childcare Center has 10 students from the community enrolled on-site. Students at the school help with the child-care center, getting class credit for their early childhood education classes.

The child-care center had equipment for the children to play on, but Black said it was outdated.

Students and faculty at the school worked for two years to raise money through silent auctions and other fundraisers for new equipment for the child-care center. The playground currently has a crawl-in castle, Wrought Iron cars, a sandbox and Big Wheel bikes.

"The family approached me in August, around the time school started, and asked if they could help.

They were familiar with the fundraisers," Black said.

That family, who wants to stay anonymous, said they would pay for a brand-new set of playground equipment for the child-care center.

"We weren't thinking they would give us anything like this," Black said.

Bandys High School formed a committee, and looked through books of playground designs. Black said they stayed on the frugal end, wanting to pick something that wasn't overly elaborate or expensive.

Playground equipment is pricey, Black said.

The family ultimately selected a model from Playworld Carolinas that was nicer than what the committee initially selected. The new equipment will have different steps to climb on, a dual set of slides, a tunnel to crawl through, bars to climb up on and other things for children to do. The total price of the equipment is $58,300.75. The family also is paying to have the play equipment installed. Black hopes the equipment will be installed at the school within a month.

Bandys High will pay to install a new fence around the play area.

"We wanted to put a new fence in, and that's just about the cost of what we'd raised (for new equipment), which is about $5,000," Black said. "It leaves a little left in the account to buy some extra toys for the kids, like shovels and buckets for the sandbox."

He added that Bandys day care is extra lucky because a parent of one of the children in the day care will do the leveling for the property before the playground equipment is installed because he has access to the equipment.

"Clearly, it is the generosity of people that let us offer our kids more," Black said. "These parents have allowed us to do that."

Black said other departments in the area are using old parts of the playground already. The horticulture department at Bandys High is using the old fence that surrounded the playground. Black said the crawl-through castle will go to the Head Start program at Balls Creek Elementary.

The children at the child-care center will exercise on the track until they get their new equipment.