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COMMUNITY PLAYGROUND "Imagine building a project with your own hands, working with your community to make it happen. Your community's dreams and imagination culminate in a design that is unique and one-of-a-kind." During the early 1990's Wayne heard about a new, interesting playground that had been built in Strongsville, Ohio that had been built "by the community." Wayne and Gloria took their two young daughters out to that playground and they had a great time. After that Wayne was interested in getting one built in Avon Lake since Strongsville was almost an hour away. Wayne contacted Leathers & Associates Community-Built Playgrounds, the company that did the work in Strongsville, and had them mail him a brochure. He quickly realized that the project was bigger than he could handle on his own. At that time, Wayne spent a lot of time at the Avon Lake swimming pool while Laura had swimming practice. Wayne spoke with a couple of the women at the pool (also regulars) that were in the women's club in Avon Lake and gave the brochure to them. The women's club is well organized and has one big fundraiser during the year that brings in a lot of money. Apparently they decided that Avon Lake needed a playground and took $10,000 from their bank account and kicked off the ALPS project. Shortly after they started the ball rolling, Wayne got involved with the project. Wayne and Holly Kowalski, an Avon Lake City Councilwoman, were the driving forces behind the publicity committee. Wayne worked for 16 months on this project and served in several capacities: working with the the tool organization group, attending countless meetings, producing vast quantities of advertising/literature and much more. The women's club came up with the name ALPS, which was to stand for "Avon Lake Play Scape." Wayne did not like the "Scape" part of the name and changed it to "Space." Everyone went along with his idea. Wayne also designed the logo. During the building of the playground, Wayne took time off from his job at Tradin' Times and spent most of his hours in the tool shed. He did spend one shift hammering nails and helping to build the playground. Wayne says, "The community seems to love the playground. Laura and Jenna are now way too big to go there, but many other kids still do play there. The ALPS is still in good condition. There were about 20 or 30 or us who really made the thing happen. Whenever I see one of them around town it is a good feeling that we share. We made something happen. I can still point out the boards that I put on ... so can everyone else that worked on the playground."
ALPS FACTS
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