Hamilton’s newest playground

Early Saturday morning, an east-end Hamilton neighbourhood was shaken awake by the sounds of pounding, yelling, and the high-pitched shriek of children. It was the best thing that’s happened in St. Andrew’s in a very long time.

St. Andrew’s is a city-owned geared to income housing development, just off Quigley Road. Its residents are used to “making do” with what they have, with not a lot of extras.

After several months of hard work and determined effort behind the scenes, the community had real reason to celebrate; a playground was being built.

“It’s not just the playground,” Katrina Hill with Kaboom said. “It’s the community that really stands behind these children, so when you bring the community together, its setting the kids up for success.”

It took St. Andrews resident seven months to pull together everything needed to make this happen for their neighbourhood, and their collective will, found a way.

“it’s for the kids, because they had no where to play,” resident, Pat Fenton said. “They needed somewhere to play and stay out of trouble.”

According to city housing, the organization that runs this complex, without the army of volunteers, it wouldn’t have happened.

They played an important role,” Brenda Osborne, CEO of City Housing said. “We don’t always have the funding, to install all these playgrounds, and our children a place to play.”

The funding and materials come from the Foresters, and Kaboom, a non-profit community organization.

The kids don’t really care, they’re just glad that someone made it happen.

“We haven’t had a park in a long time,” one child said. “The old park was really boring.”

The hardest part for the kids will be waiting for concrete to dry, because they have to wait three days until they can get their hands on the park they helped design.