By Dongyun Kwon
Healesville Primary School got a brand new playground with students-leading funds on Tuesday 6 February.
The fundraising was conducted by all students with diverse activities in 2023.
The Colour Fun Run and the Healesville Twilight Market were two of the major events that brought huge amounts of funds.
Grade 6 student Emmy said everyone participated together to help the school get the new playground.
“For the Twilight Market, there were a lot of businesses from around the Yarra Ranges coming and supporting us to help raise money for the playground,” she said.
“With the Colour Fun Run, we raised enough money, the school basically throws colour at you and you run through it and you raise money by a little shop thing you can buy stuff from to help raise money.
“It (the new playground) is very fun and way better than the other one that was breaking and crumbling at every corner.”
Grade 5 students Brandon and Rory said they are happy and proud of what they’ve done.
“Both Twilight Market and Colour Fun Run were worth it and fun,” they said.
“I like monkey ropes and monkey bars,” Rory said.
“The pole is really fun too and it was also cool when we got the rakes because [there was] a lot of tanbark and all the [Grade] 5/6s had to rake it all up across the playground,” Brandon said.
The junior school council [in 2023] came up with the idea of upgrading the damaged playground and actively planned how to raise funds for the upgrade.
Healesville Primary School principal Tracey Robertson-Smith said the original playground was unsafe for students to play.
“There were broken vertical poles that the kids climbed along,” she said.
“There are only three platforms left on the new playground and we had to take away the rest because they were broken, sharp and dangerous.
“There were other broken bits that we needed to take away and even the wooden bridge didn’t work properly.”
Ms Robertson-Smith said she is over the moon for what her students have done.
“I love the fact that the school has done it and the kids are benefiting from it,” she said.
“It is the whole community that made this happen, including parents, teachers and local businesses.
“Different companies donated prizes that we could raffle off, so we made money through the raffle in the Twilight Market.”
