By Dakota Antelman — [email protected]
A fundraising push at Thoreau Elementary School has collected just over $380,000 in a matter of months as school leaders eye a new playground.
Amid the success, project backers are still working toward a donation goal of $610,000 by April 1. Elsewhere on the Thoreau campus, other projects are also moving forward.
“It’s all really exciting,” Thoreau principal Justin Sparks said in an interview early in the playground fundraising process.
Dubbed “Thoreau’s Backyard,” visions for a new playground call for amenities ranging from a zip line to a boulder climbing area. Thoreau’s Backyard would replace an aging structure that Sparks described as a “hand-me-down” from the Alcott School.
Erin Sahacic, one of several Thoreau parents working on the project, said it would mark a significant step forward given the existing structure.
“The current research on the play needs of children are fundamentally very different than they were 30 years ago,” she said.
The fundraising started in October. The tally was $380,705 as of January 22.
Student involvement
As parents and school officials drum up support, they have included student involvement via a student playground committee. The youth panel gave feedback about which elements should be in the finished product. The students are also helping raise money.
“It’s empowering,” Sahacic said. “We don’t want to make decisions that don’t have the kids first.”
Parents and staff working on the playground have called for a design that is inclusive and connected to nature.
Once fundraising wraps up, Sparks said the playground will take shape through a “community build,” where a small team of professionals manages a larger cadre of community volunteers.
‘Work to be done’
Sparks started working in Concord in 2023 and said he quickly noticed the state of Thoreau’s campus.
“It’s a beautiful building inside,” he said, though he cautioned, “there’s a lot of work to be done outside.”
The playground effort is one of several campus projects, such as a parking lot expansion and a plan to revitalize the school’s fields and other outdoor amenities.
Concord Public Schools plans to fund the parking lot project with $200,000 in capital spending. Officials hope to use $444,960 in Community Preservation Act money for the open space project.
The schools applied for CPA money in September and won support from the Community Preservation Committee during a January 14 meeting. The request will go before Town Meeting voters in June.
District officials charted a rough schedule for campus improvements in their CPC application that would involve starting construction on the playground and the parking lot expansion this summer. The open space work would start next spring.
Though the timeline for the projects is not yet final, schools superintendent Laurie Hunter told The Bridge on January 22, “[We are] hoping we can get started sooner than later.”
Thoreau’s future
Sparks said officials planning Thoreau’s campus upgrades are “trying to be creative with funding sources,” understanding that the school budget could not absorb all the costs.
As playground fundraising continues, Sahacic said, in a mid-January email to The Bridge, that the project was getting money from grants, large donor gifts, and “continued community donations of all sizes.”
“With the momentum we saw from the community through our December campaign, we are confident in our goal being met,” she said in an earlier message.
Hunter and others have repeatedly praised the Thoreau’s Backyard fundraising in municipal meetings.
Approaching two years since he started working at Thoreau, Sparks is excited to break ground.
“Every principal’s dream is to build a playground,” he said.
Learn more at www.thoreausbackyard.com.
