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 Volunteers from Clearwater Paper, Cleveland County Sheriff’s Department and Kiwanis Club assembled tables and benches.
The community build started Friday afternoon with 12 volunteers from Clearwater Paper, Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office and Shelby Kiwanis Club assembling all of the tables and benches and cementing all of the posts in place. It was cold but sunny.
Susan Goforth Porter, niece of Joe and Sophia Goforth, stopped by Friday afternoon and thanked the volunteers for their support of the project. The volunteers got an extra special "Thank You!" from the more than 80 kids at the Boys & Girls Club who watched in amazement as the playground started to appear.
Saturday morning, Roger Davis, President, Playground Safety Services, who was coordinating the community build, explained to the more than 55 volunteers that because of the heavy rains earlier in the week, his crew was two days behind in preparing the site. As the snowflakes began to fall, volunteers from Clearwater Paper, Burns High School FFA Chapter, Two Wheel Syndicate Motor Cycle Club, Shelby Police, Cleveland County Sheriff's Office, Shelby Kiwanis Club, Church of the Redeemer, Cleveland County Independent Bikers, and Boys & Girls Club Board members headed to the site to set borders, fence posts, and then start the task of moving 300 cubic yards of mulch into the playground using wheel barrows.
As the weather got worse, the crews seemed to work faster to complete their tasks. Ten wheel barrows were constantly moving over the fabric cover as the mulch was distributed on the 44 x 112 foot site. While the wheel barrow brigade was working hard, others were setting poles for the chain link fence and placing the 12 inch high borders around the edges of the playground.
By 11:30am, the hot dogs prepared by Boys & Girls Club Board volunteers were ready for to be served. Folks covered in mud and wet were ready for a break. Most of the volunteers worked until about two in the afternoon. By late Saturday, 80% of the mulch was in place, posts for two sides of the fences were set and the sun finally came out.
Plans are being finalized to finish the playground March 8 and 9 according to Davis. He stated that if we could get volunteers Friday afternoon from 1:30 to 4:30 and another group of volunteers Saturday from 9:00am to noon, we should be able to finish the playground.
Ray Styx, a volunteer from the Clearwater Paper noted that we would be able to use the skid loader to move the mulch to spots in the playground rather than the wheel barrow races between the different volunteer groups. “I have done a playground in Illinois before I moved to Shelby. This is a lot of work, but we are doing it to give these kids a great place to play.”
Jack Weller, Board President wanted to be sure that each volunteer was thanked for giving of their time to make this possible. He said “On behalf of the children at the Boys & Girls Club "Thank You for volunteering for the Community Build of the Joe and Sophia Goforth Playground and making this opportunity possible.”
–Provided by Jack Weller
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