PORT ANGELES — The Dream Playground will close this weekend while volunteers spruce it up — and more volunteers are needed.
The playground, which is on Race Street at Erickson Park, will close Friday and reopen Monday.
The Dream Playground Foundation, which provides maintenance funding, community support and ongoing fundraising for the facility, will oversee the effort.
To-do list
The foundation plans to apply sealer to the wooden fence and play structure, repair part of the entrance area, repaint roofs and colorful areas, rake and redistribute ground cover, sweep up debris and trash, and remove or cover up graffiti.
“Port Angeles’ playground has a service life of 20 to 30 years, depending on how well it is maintained,” said Steve Charno, foundation president, in a statement.
“Our goal is to keep it in great shape through annual volunteer maintenance until we eventually need to replace it,” he added.
“The better we take care of it, the more kids will be able to enjoy it and the longer it will last.”
Volunteers from the foundation, members of the community and several members of the Coast Guard are signed up to help out during the annual maintenance.
More will be needed, said Steve Methner, past president of the Dream Playground Foundation.
Workers are asked to come for shifts from two hours to all day. Work hours will be from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. both Friday and Saturday.
Volunteers may bring light carpentry tools, cordless drills, rakes and shovels, hats, gloves and water.
“Also bring lots of enthusiasm, corny jokes and laughter,” Methner said.
The foundation was formed in 2002 and has overseen events and ongoing fundraising for repairs as well as for a fund for the eventual overhaul or replacement of the 12,000-square-foot facility.
Built in five days
The Dream Playground was built during five days in September 2002 by more than 2,000 volunteers in one of the largest volunteer projects Clallam County had ever seen.
Starting in February 2002, the playground committee, in partnership with Kiwanis, raised more than $185,000, nearly all from local businesses and individuals, to pay for the construction.
Many local material donations have been made as well.
The construction was intentionally started Sept. 11, 2002, as a statement that hope and the American spirit remained strong and would move forward in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks of 2001, Methner said.
Since the original 2002 construction, the foundation has constructed colorful hand tile structures, an entrance plaza, benches and tables, a new sidewalk with sponsor bricks and a 20-foot-by-30-foot pavilion.
It has also erected a totem pole, created by master carver Al Charles Jr., that was given to the playground by the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe.
Kiwanis Club of Port Angeles and Kiwanis Foundation of Port Angeles have been founding sponsors and major supporters of the playground effort.
Sponsors
Other current major sponsors are First Federal, the Albert Haller Foundation, the Benjamin N. Phillips Fund of the Seattle Foundation, Gibson Design Group, Aldergrove Construction Inc., the Fire Fighters of Port Angeles, Peninsula Children’s Clinic, Angeles Millwork & Lumber Co., Sterling Savings Bank, Family Medicine of Port Angeles and 7 Cedars Casino.
For more information or to volunteer, phone Methner at 360-460-7356.
Playground information also can be found at www.dreamplayground.com.
