BREMERTON, WA - Woodlands Elementary School students have a new playground to enjoy thanks to a down-to-the-wire construction job that was pulled off Friday. Volunteers from several local Home Depot locations, the Navy’s SeeBees and members of the PTA worked all day to get the playground built by the PTA’s Saturday deadline.

“It’s a labor of love, it really is,” playground project coordinator Cindy Kleinfelter (aka,cekleinfelter) said.

To qualify for their $5,000 Home Depot-KaBOOM! Community-Build Playspace and Field Refurbishment Challenge Grant, the group had to have the playground constructed by Dec. 1.

Fortunately, everyone on hand was eager and willing and some even had personal ties to the project.

Read more about the build day here .

Other tidbits from the article:

• “You go and you help the schools and the kids and you never really meet anybody. It’s nice to be in your own community this time,” said Gig Harbor Home Depot employee Carrie Harding.
• “It gives us a chance to show the kids that the military loves to help kids,” Master at Arms Seaman Braxton Jahner said. “That’s the one thing, we do a lot of community service.”
• The Woodlands PTA raised about $13,000 to ensure that Phase 2 could be completed. The Woodlands ASB put another $2,500 into the project and the KaBOOM! grant provided another $5,000.
• This is the first time in several years Woodlands students had any playground equipment at all. The previous playground was torn down several years ago when traces of poisonous chemicals were found within the paint.
• “I think it was Alex (who) came home and he said, ‘Mommy, the PTA really needs to raise us some money and build us a playground,’ and I said, ‘I’m on it, honey.’” said Kleinflelter.
• Phases 3-5 will cost about $100,000 and while plans to build haven’t been cemented yet, Kleinfelter is ready to wind up the fund-raising machine again.