By Blair Dedrick, New Era Staff Writer

Organizers planned for 75 to 100 people to attend Tuesday night’s design reveal for Project Playground.

Instead, more than 220 people braved thunderstorms and a tornado watch to show up, leaving members of the Leadership Hopkinsville group that initiated the project amazed and excited.

“People have already stepped up and said they want to be sponsors,” Leadership Hopkinsville member Louanne Young said. “I think that with the size of the group, I think we can get it done.”

The plan is to raise the estimated $175,000 cost of the project through fundraising efforts and in-kind gifts. The city of Hopkinsville has already committed to allowing a $65,000 crumb rubber grant to be used for the project as well as city staff expertise and the use of the land at North Drive Complex.

After kindergarteners from Heritage Christian Academy entertained the group by singing a song about the different activities the kids could do on the playground, designer John Dean took over.

“By the time I was with the first group of kids, I had enough ideas to design 10 of these,” he said, gesturing toward the playground design.

Dean works for Leathers and Associates, a New York company that specializes in designing playgrounds based on ideas from children.

Although Dean has designed more than 800 playgrounds, he said the level of interest in Hopkinsville was impressive.

“At a normal public meeting in Anytown, USA, you have maybe 20, 30, 40 people,” he said. “Here, there are storm warnings and it’s a mob scene.”

The playground, which will be located at the North Drive Complex, will include a clock tower and fire station modeled on the ones downtown, a pirate ship, a fire pole, multiple slides and swings, a rock climbing wall, a maze, an obstacle course and an amphitheater with a dancing stage.

The 30 or 40 children who attended the meeting sat enthralled, their faces brightening as they recognized their suggestions, while Dean went over the design with them.

“We’re going to need soap put on a lot of screws so they are easier to get in,” Dean told the kids. “Who can help with that?”

Hands went up.

“Who wants to paint?” he asked to more hands.

Dean regards the children as the key to the whole project.

“They are the high octane fuel for this kind of event,” he said. “We know we have to tap into that. The kids are the core, and we did that today, we tapped in.”

One of the ideas the children insisted on that impressed Dean was the need for ramps for “kids in wheelchairs.”

“Your playground is going to have a lot of ramps,” he said, adding that much of it will be handicapped-accessible.

The five-day building project is scheduled to happen April 30 to May 4.

Organizers said they should have a finalized design with a building supply list within a week or two.

“We’re going to need donations of nails and screws and all sorts of things,” the Rev. Brandt Lyon, a Leadership Hopkinsville member, said. “We would really appreciate whatever you can do to make this dream a reality.”

Dean told stories of some of the other playgrounds he has built, including one in a town of 3,500 where he thinks almost everyone in town showed up at what he called a “construction fairground.”

“The first one I did, I didn’t know anything about this,” he said. “I got to one of these sites, I’ve never seen anything like it before – 150 people out in the mud. I’ve never heard so many hammers in my life.”

One of the playgrounds he showed included intricate detail work.

“We did not plan for that,” he said. “It happened during the build when someone with those skills showed up to help.”

The reason for the community support, Dean said, is the children.

“If you ask kids what they want in a playground, they’re going to look you smack between the eyes and let you have it,” he said. “Every one is different, but the kick in the process is the kids’ involvement.”

“We’re building the playground of their dreams,” he said. “Do you think they’re going to forget that?”