The fire destroyed about a third of the playground, but the City of Sacramento decided to gut the whole thing and start over. Eleven months later, about two thousand people are scheduled to work four hour shifts this week to help build a new park.
Councilman Steve Cohn says it should take about a week to complete.
“You don’t have to worry about food or drink. We’ll have all that provided. What’s really great is for young parents with kids, we have day care provided so they can think of it as a holiday. They’re just working a little. But it’s really gonna be a whole village out there of people. It’s a barn-raising on steroids.”
A thousand school children submitted ideas for the new design. Some were incorporated.
“The designer came into and talked to kids and they drew all kinds of, you know, some things you might think were pretty far out there –you know, spaceships and all sorts of things- but some of these elements actually ended up in the design.”
Cohn helped build the original structure two decades ago.
The city will pay about $300,000 for construction, insurance on the old structure has paid about the same amount and the community has donated about $900,000 in materials and labor.
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