We are excited about a community project that is taking place in Picayune, MS. Through a “grassroots” effort, the citizens of Pearl River County are joining hands to provide a state-of-the-art playground not only for the children of Picayune but for children who visit our community. What makes this project unique is that the children design the playground, and the entire community will help with the fundraising and supply the labor to build the playground in only five days during one week in April 2011.

This is one way we can show our community that we love and support our children. Remember, it is your park too.

  Pennies for Your Park II has several different committees that need volunteers to assist with making this a success. General CO-Coordinators are Allen Hickman, Diane Miller and Reba Beebe.  Committees and Coordinators are as followed- Fund Raising- Tiffany Baucum; Public Relations- Delores Wood and April Parsons; Volunteer- Dawn Bechtel and Suzan Wilson ; Children’s Committee- Nikki Bean and Nikki Clark; Materials- Dennis Collier; Tools- Michael Stubbs & Carlos Keyes; Food- Derek Turnage and Tony Smith; Design- Don Wicks and Debbie Benoit . Project  Treasurer is Freida Dobson and Secretary Ruth Ann Gholson and grant research Keri Bass Hensarling along with Barbara McGrew.

   Fundraising has a lot of ideas still in the planning stages such as – Concert; ticket sales; hand print tile sales; t-shirt sales; and several other wonderful ideas that we all hope will be welcomed by the community.

  Allen Hickman and the Design team will go to individual schools in the Fall to share the idea with students and teachers. We are hoping for a little friendly competition between schools and grades to help with the fundraiser. Students will also be involved in the design of the playground when the team of Leather and Associates return to meet with students to include their input.

   Marc Leathers and Kyle Cundy of  Leathers and Associates were in Picayune on Tuesday- and spent the day at Kids Kingdom in Friendship Park. Leather and Associates worked with Pennies for Your Park I- 15 years ago and looks forward to the redesign of the park to make it ADA approved as well as redesign components in  the both  Toddler and  Handicap area.  Marc and Kyle will spend the next two weeks reviewing photos and layouts of the current playground and make suggestions for new components for the park.

  A list of components and cost for each component that will allow the various community  organizations or citizens to purchase the component of their choice. Plaques will be displayed on the various components showing the donors community support.