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Equipment comes from closed school

Plum Cove dedicates new playground tomorrow

By Patrick Anderson
Staff Writer
Published: October 16, 2008

The playground is back at Plum Cove Elementary School, thanks to a group of parents who drove a multi-month project to move equipment formerly at Fuller School across town.

Plum Cove's old playground was removed to make way for the six modular classrooms attached to the school this summer to as part of the re-population of the school and city's elementary redistricting plan, which included the closing of Fuller.

As Plum Cove gains grades and students — it will have twice as many students next year as it had last year — not having a proper playground presented a significant problem.

The solution was to move the equipment that belonged to Fuller, no longer needed now that the school has been shuttered, to part of the Plum Cove property not covered by modulars.

To make the move, the Plum Cove School Site Committee and Plum Cove Parent Teacher Co-Operative organized a fund-raiser in May and got together city officials and local leaders to help with the effort.

"With more than twice as many students at the school by next year as before, this would have been devastating," Hugo Burnham of the Plum Cove Site Committee said in an e-mail this week.

The Plum Cove parents were helped in their fund-raising by the captains of the Discovery Channel television show, "Deadliest Catch," who were in Gloucester filming at the time and appeared at the school event in May.

The Department of Public Works and Gloucester Crossing developer Sam Park were also involved in the project.

The equipment, originally purchased by the Fuller School PTO, includes slides, a jungle gym, monkey bars and a swing set. While the frame for the swings is in place, the actual swing seats have yet to arrive.

The transfer was approved by the School Committee.

A dedication ceremony will be held for the playground tomorrow at 10 a.m.

Yesterday, 7-year-old Madison Laing, a second-grader, enjoyed the new playground with her brothers.

"It's fun," Laing said about the playground. "The swings are my favorite, but they're not here yet."

Patrick Anderson can be reached at panderson@gloucestertimes.com.

Photos

Kate Glass/Gloucester Daily Times

Colby Laing, 5, climbs on buttons at the new playground at Plum Cove Elementary School while his brother, Brody, 5, goes down the slide. There will be an official dedication ceremony at the playground at 10 a.m. tomorrow.