I made it to New Orleans late on Friday night – so when I woke up on Saturday morning my first thought was: “Why do I say yes to this stuff?”. I’d agreed to participate in a CableCares initiative to support New Orleans schools affected by the hurricane. After much grumbling and lashings of Starbucks (extra shot) I headed over to the Fannie C Williams school where I was to help build a playground. Several years on the teaching was still taking place in portacabins and there was nothing at all for the kids to do outside.
I was allocated the mulch team. That all sounded great until I saw the pile of mulch – it was ENORMOUS. Apparently 280sq feet of the stuff. So after liberal slatherings of suncream I got to work with a shovel. We worked for hours without any apparent dent in the pile – the plan was to fill the whole playground area with 12″ of mulch. This is pretty tough work but the team spirit was great and we kept telling ourselved that it was for the children 😉
I was absolutely amazed how much we managed to achieve. (Look at the video here). While my team shovelled, others put up fantastic payground equipment, made planters, painted etc. I even got a break from shovelling to help paint a cyclepath much to the fascination of the kids. When we left the playground looked AMAZING. The biggest disappointment is that we weren’t allowed to play on it until the concrete had set – boo. I am really pleased I took part in this initiative to help this deserving area in a small way. That said I may never use mulch ever again.