North PARK beats goal

La Crosse Tribune, May 04, 2003 by Grooms, Autumn

The day North Side elementary school students have been waiting months for arrived Saturday.

Adults wearing hard hats used golden-spaded shovels to take the first dig at the groundbreaking ceremony for North PARK at Franklin Elementary School.

After the initial groundbreaking digs, students were given the honor.

Holding tightly to a shovel, 11-year-old John Dwyer, a fifth-grader at Franklin Elementary, stomped it through the wood chips into the dirt.

"It feels good," he said. "We need some better equipment."

The North Playground and Recreation for Kids partnership began raising money about 20 months ago and will provide new playground equipment at Franklin Elementary, Jefferson Elementary/Coulee Montessori, and Roosevelt Elementary/School of Technology and Arts I. The playground equipment will be handicapped accessible.

North Woods and Summit declined to participate because they have newer equipment. South Side schools were not included because North PARK officials wanted to keep the project manageable.

The goal was to raise $140,000 for the project.

Randy Eddy Sr., a North Side businessman and chairman of the North PARK partnership, announced to the crowd before the groundbreaking that not only had the goal been met, it had been passed.

"We raised $145,000," he said. "Life is good."

More than 480 individual and group donations have come in to support North PARK, Eddy said, and that includes about $23,000 raised during a parent and community fund-raiser last fall.

"It's awesome," Eddy said. "The project really shows the strength of the Coulee Region, Everyone partnering together is what the area is all about."