Volunteers Pitch in to Fix Up Adam's Wacky World
 Volunteers of all ages were pitching in Saturday to make the Wacky World playground safer until a new playground can be built. |
Update Monday, Aug. 12, 2013, 6:09 p.m.: The efforts of the Wacky World Warriors may have been for naught.
The group was informed Monday by the Adams-Cheshire Regional School District that schoolchildren in its care would not be allowed to play at Wacky World because the pressure-treated wood contains "toxins," presumably the arsenic used in the treatment process until it was banned in 2004.
"I have been informed that there is absolutely nothing we can do to repair or refurbish Wacky World so that our kids can use it during the school day," wrote organizer Steve Melito on the group's Facebook page.
The group had planned to continue work including staining the wood structure, but Melito says they will have to decide whether to use the $2,000 raised to continue improvements.
However, on Tuesday there were indications it could be used. We'll find out for sure this week.
ADAMS, Mass. — Someday soon, 7-year-old Matthew Melito will be back at Wacky World to play.
But on Saturday, he was hard at work.
While many of his friends likely were swimming or playing soccer or sleeping in, Matthew was part of a pint-sized crew raking sand in the landing zone for the slide at the 20-year-old playground behind C.T. Plunkett Elementary School.
That crew is part of a much larger volunteer effort to revitalize the playground and get it ready for the start of school.
Last fall, school officials announced they would keep children out of the town landmark during school hours because of unsafe conditions.
The announcement galvanized a grassroots effort that culminated Saturday with the first of two scheduled work days that the self-proclaimed Wacky World Warriors will make the playground usable — at least until funding can be arranged for a new play space behind the school.
Matthew's dad, Steve Melito, helped organize the Warriors.
"We've had an insane situation in Adams since last October where before 2:10 in the afternoon, schoolchildren could not play on this," Melito said, referring to the school's decision not to use Wacky World for recess. "But when the school day was out at 2:11, they could come on this and they did.
"Regardless of what the school does this September, whether they say it's safe for recess or not, we're doing a good thing for all of the other kids who come here with their grandparents and their parents after the school day is done and on the weekends."
Although, like many Adams residents, Melito has a soft spot in his heart for the expansive, wooden playground, he recognizes that the long-term solution is to raze Wacky World and erect something modern and state-of-the-art.
"But as the parent of a schoolchild, I didn't want to wait a couple of years to have a place for them to play," Melito said.
That they have a place at all is the result of another grassroots effort in the early 1990s. A two-year fundraising campaign that included everything from pancake breakfasts to penny jars in classrooms produced $32,000 for the original Adams Playground Project (Wacky World was the name voted on by schoolchildren in 1991, a year before the facility was built).
The playground was built in five days by more than 3,000 volunteers, an effort well chronicled in the book "Two Years and Five Days: Wacky World Remembered," published by the members of the playground committee in 1994.
Lifelong Adams resident Deb Gigliotti was part of that October 1992 work crew, and she was back on site on Saturday.
In between, like a lot of people, she lost track of what was happening in Wacky World.
"I didn't come for several years," Gigliotti said. "I had no reason to. I had no little kids. Now, I have two grandsons who come here to play. And it was disgusting. The slide was broken. They went down, and the could have sliced their hand on it. Bottles and cans and cigarette butts all over the place.
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Now it's time to put in a little more.
About 20 volunteers, including some courtesy of Berkshire County Superior Court, on Saturday were out raking up woodchips, clearing debris, sanding and repainting metal surfaces and repairing equipment.
A crew from Ciempa Landscaping volunteered its services to cut back a tree line that had grown overtop of the play area. The overhanging limbs presented a potential danger to children, and the shadow the trees cast over Wacky World helps encourage illicit activity in the park after hours, Melito said.
Among the debris volunteers have found in the park have been hypodermic needles.
"Berkshire County has a heroin problem," Melito said. "Adams has a heroin problem. It's here as well. Those needles and that stuff goes on in here."
Cutting back the trees to allow more natural light may help. Down the road, the Warriors would like to see some artificial lighting added to the park to deter trespassers at night.
Of course, that takes money. So do some of the short-term fixes the Warriors are planning: a sealant they plan to apply to the wooden surfaces later this month and the playground-grade wood chips they want to add to make a softer landing area in the park.
"[The wood chips] have to be treated, so, unfortunately [limbs cut on Saturday] can't be used," Melito said.
"We need 12 inches of chips, realistically. The law says 9 inches, but common sense says they'll get compressed. So we need a foot of 'regulation' wood chips."
They also needed sand for Matthew Melito and company to spread, and Adams' Specialty Minerals Inc. stepped up and donated the material, which makes sense because its parent company, Minerals Technologies, was one of 12 "major contributors" to the Adams Playground Committee two decades ago.
In addition to the in-kind contributions, the Wacky World Warriors have raised $1,700 this summer to help revive the playground.
"We had people who told us that times are tough, that people don't care as much anymore, but that's not what we found," Melito said. "The Adams community, both individuals and companies, has been fantastic.
"This is Berkshire County. This is part of our quality of life. We have to fight for it."
Tags: elementary schools, parks, playgrounds, volunteers,
