The play structure at Lawrence Elementary School is a popular place to be for students and kids in the community. (submitted photo/Lynn Greening)

By Martin Martinson

Ace in the hole

Lawrence Elementary hosting Chase the Ace for new children’s playground

Sep 17, 2019 | 4:48 PM

Competitors hope to draw a spade before the school uses one to break ground on a new play structure.

Lawrence Elementary School is hosting a Chase the Ace Fundraiser to help raise funds for new playground equipment.

Principal of Lawrence Elementary, Christine Gibson, said the new play structure has been a long time coming.

She said when she first joined the school six years ago, there had already been some assessments and reports done suggesting that new playground equipment would be needed, to replace the older structures on each of the junior and senior sides of the playground.

“In the first couple of years, we raised enough to replace the playground equipment on our junior side,” she said. “Those are our primary kids; our kids in kindergarten to Grade 2 who play on our junior side. We spent the majority of our fundraising dollars replacing a really old wooden structure that really wasn’t safe anymore [for them].”

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Since that time however, the focus of the school over the last four years has been toward updating the senior side. Gibson said it is important to build a new structure for the Grades 3 to 6 children as well.

“We’re looking for a larger structure that we can put out on the big kids’ side,” she said. “We surveyed our kids and they are dying to have something that has a bridge on it and some monkey bars and things like that, so that is the type of structure we are looking for, a larger one.”

Keeping the play structure up to date and safe for children’s use is of utmost importance to the staff and community at Lawrence Elementary School. (Martin Martinson/battlefordsNOW Staff)

The school began selling tickets for the Chase the Ace on Friday, Sept. 13. The first draw will be held Sept. 20 at 1 p.m., and there will be weekly draws until the ace is drawn.

Each week the person whose name is drawn will win a guaranteed prize of 20 per cent of the weekly sales, regardless of whether that person picks the ace or not.

If the ace of spades is picked, that person will receive 30 per cent of total sales. The rest of the money raised will be donated to the school for the construction of the play structure.

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Martin.Martinson@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: MartyMartyPxP1