Community Volunteers Needed to Build Cranberry Kids Castle Playground

Kids Castle—the playground replacing the recently-dismantled Playtime Palace at Cranberry Community Park—will have three thematic play areas. They are Cranberry Yesterday, Cranberry Today and Cranberry Tomorrow.  

Construction of the Cranberry Today section will employ a “community build” model requiring 400 volunteers over five days, from Wednesday, July 31 to Sunday Aug. 4.

Earlier this year, the nonprofit Cranberry Township Community Chest asked children from the community to sketch what they wanted the Today section of Kids Castle playground to include.  

Altogether, 3,500 students from Seneca Valley, St Killian's and other local schools submitted drawings of what they wanted. Twenty-five volunteers reviewed each drawing and selected the most popular features for the design and equipment.

The most requested features included a brightly colored structure with multiple-stories and platforms. Participants wanted to be able to climb and descend the structure in interesting ways, including through the use of climbing rocks, slides, posts, and climbing poles of different sizes and shapes.

An entrance gate to the playground will use two of the spires from Playtime Palace, and tie them into the whimsical theme of the Today section.  

The gate also will be included as part of the community build effort, along with fencing made of wood from Playtime Palace.

Construction on the project will require volunteers working from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. in three 4.5 hour shifts. 

There will be a 30-minute overlap between shifts so volunteers who are leaving can update their replacements on what remains to be done. Six volunteer captains will be on site during all shifts for the full five days to help coordinate volunteers.

To sign up for one or more shifts, go to either Cranberry’s website at www.cranberrytownship.org, or the CTCC web site at www.ctcchest.org and click on "Sign up to Help Build Kids Castle."  

This will take you to a link where you may enter your contact information as well as the day(s) and shift(s) you are interested in working. You will also be asked to evaluate your skill level as a construction worker.

Organizers are encouraging volunteers to consider working more than one shift, if possible. There is a particular interest in volunteers who can attend both late morning and late afternoon shifts to help prepare food/drinks for other volunteers.

In addition, organizers are looking for people with certain types of equipment they would be willing to loan for the duration of the build. These include a three cubic foot cement mixer, a 10-inch planer, cordless heavy duty drills or impact drivers with extra batteries, heavy duty orbital jigsaws, a 10- or 12-inch portable table saw, routers, and a router table.

Anyone willing to loan one or more of these items should email Supervisor Bruce Mazzoni at brucemazzoni@zoominternet.net.

Once the Today section of the playground is complete, commercial fixtures for the other sections, as well as the landscaping, will be installed during August.