DEALE, MD - The Deale business community has rallied 'round to help Deale Elementary School get a new playground, but the playground committee still needs just $2,000 more to start the project.
A recent mass mailing to area business brought in a slew of donations, ranging from $50 to $1,000.

The students have already raised $14,000 on their own, including the last few thousand through an enthusiastic penny drive, but they are still $2,000 shy of the $16,000 needed to design, resurface and equip a badly needed new playground.

"The efforts of Deale children emptying out their piggybanks has yielded the same amount as the businesses so far," said Marianne Rude of the playground committee.

Read more about the effort here.

Other tidbits from the article:

• For the month of December alone, Deale Elementary students raised $857 in their classroom penny jars.
• Rude is challenging those members of the business community who have not yet donated to consider giving back to the community that supports them. Donations were made from $50 to $100 by several small businesses from a day care center to a hair salon, to a CPA firm.
• The Southern Anne Arundel Chamber of Commerce is starting the new year with an innovative way to raise scholarship funds and clean up the community at the same time. A trash-to-treasure theme typifies chamber members' plan to convert unwanted vehicles into cash.