Kids save playground
Published Saturday August 23rd, 2008
Democracy trumps bureaucracy
A just society doesn't pave a playground and put up a parking lot. Period.
The kids of Ackman Court knew it, and now the grown-ups know it too.
New Brunswick's Social Development Minister Mary Schryer said yesterday her department is now prepared to replace a playground slated for demolition at one of her department's NB Housing communities in east Moncton.
The park had been the site of a four-day long protest completely organized by neighbourhood children after contractors arrived Tuesday to tear it out.
Facing opposition from a group of pint-sized children with 10-gallon hearts, the workers agreed to give them a week to appeal the decision to remove the play area, known as Winnie Reiker Playground.
Adult residents of the community were told the outdated, potentially unsafe playground was being removed so work could be carried out on the sewer system, but that it would not be replaced and the space would be turned into a parking lot.
Except for a mom going to the store for Bristol board to make signs, the entire protest movement was the work of children under 13. It was even the kids who first thought to back up calls to their MLA Chris Collins with a call to the Times & Transcript on day three of the protest.
At lunchtime yesterday, on day four, the kids were resting in the hot sun with their protest placards at their feet wondering if it was in fact possible to change the grown-up world of bureaucracy.
They weren't ready to give up, though.
Even though the Times & Transcript's newsroom vehicle bears no company markings, when it pulled into their neighbourhood, they immediately recognized it from their first experience with the news media the day before.
Two-dozen media-savvy tykes rose to their feet as one, raising up their signs and starting their impassioned marching anew in hope that someone in the highly abstract concept of Fredericton would hear their plea.
As the kids impressed a reporter with their maturity and secured a place on the front page by virtue of being collectively adorable, most of them failed to notice a second vehicle arrive.
But when Moncton East MLA Chris Collins emerged to tell them they would get a brand new playground with safe equipment that they would help design, a neighbourhood erupted in cheers and tears.
Collins was still in mid-sentence when one little girl decided she was too excited to keep the news to herself.
She cried out, "I'm going to tell my mom!" and sprinted off in a flash of strawberry-blonde hair and flapping flip-flops.
A group of other moms and dads who had come out to see what was going on were also moved by the sudden good news. Some admitted that when they first saw Collins arrive, they figured he'd been tasked with delivering bad news.
"I've got goose bumps," said Natania Roberts, while others expressed relief that their children, who occasionally face the stigma of growing up in subsidized housing, now saw that they mattered after all.
Another mom, Rachelle Williams, spoke of self-respect, saying the community wasn't looking for a handout, just the same thing kids in other parts of the city enjoyed.
Williams said she and her neighbours took stock of their community this week in light of what their kids were seeking, and discovered more than three-quarters of the adults in the neighbourhood hold jobs. Because of shifting demographics, it's possible to find playgrounds in some Moncton neighbourhoods sitting virtually empty while this playground is filled with large numbers of kids. As children of the working poor, their recreation options are somewhat more limited than other children, especially in summer when they don't have easy access to the playgrounds at their schools. A nearby city playground, close to the dangers of the Humphrey Brook, was closed a number of years ago.
"You've proven you can make a difference in your own lives," Chris Collins told the kids. "No matter how old you are, how young you are, no matter how small you are, you can always make a difference."
"And who got you a brand new park?" he asked.
"Chris Collins!" one mom yelled out gratefully, catching Collins off guard.
"Oh no," he said. "It's you guys who got you a new park," he said, pointing to the children.
Nevertheless, 10-year-old Caitlen Vautour, one of the little girls who spearheaded the protest, quickly marshalled her forces into giving "three cheers for Chris Collins!"
"I'm surprised and happy," Vautour said afterward. She said she had been hoping they would win their battle, but wasn't sure.
"This is the best (funding) announcement I've ever made," a beaming Collins said. "It's actually one of the smallest in terms of dollars, but I think it will make the most difference."
The minister for Social Development said yesterday that when Collins approached her the answer was obvious.
"I immediately said, 'this can't be. They need to have a playground,'" Schryer said. She said part of social housing has to include active living, not just for children, but the older youth in the neighbourhood as well.
She expressed regret that perhaps less than ideal communications had led to the situation coming to a head in the first place, but said she had instructed her staff to put the work into next year's budget. She gave assurances, repeated by Collins, that the new playground would come with spring.
"The children will be part of the committee to tell us what they want their playground to look like," Schryer said. "We're going to start with a clean slate."
She emphasized how impressed she had been by the actions of the children of Humphrey Heights.
"They knew how to do it properly," she said of them speaking up, contacting government and making their protest a peaceful one.
The current playground still has to be removed to make way for necessary sewer work, but Collins said the planning of the new site will happen over the winter so everything is ready for construction come spring.
Anyone who has visited the Humphrey Heights NB Housing project off and on over the more than 30 years of its existence would see a neighbourhood changed for the better.
While there were no doubt always good things happening in the neighbourhood, there were bad things happening as well. Today, though there are still occasionally bad things happening, as there are pretty much everywhere else, things seem quieter on Ackman Court and Palisade and Sumac Street.
And if the neighbourhood is indeed more peaceful and more stable, it's no doubt because of the real sense of community seen there this week when a big group of small children fought and won a big battle to hold onto their small corner of the world.
They impressed a lot of people, perhaps no one more than the minister responsible for NB Housing.
"They came to us with reason and they presented it to us," Mary Schryer said. "It's their community. When the community takes control of their destiny, it's amazing what they can do."
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