Volunteers build new playground at Minneapolis elementary school

New playground
Dozens of volunteers gathered at Jenny Lind Elementary School in Minneapolis on Saturday, Sept. 22, 2018, to build a new playground.
Nina Moini | MPR News

Dozens of volunteers gathered at a north Minneapolis elementary school Saturday to build a new playground, just a few months after a tragedy at a playground in an adjacent park.

The new playground at Jenny Lind Elementary School is a short distance from Bohanon Park, where three young siblings were injured in June when a driver fleeing police crashed into that playground.

Toronto-based Foresters Financial and the nonprofit KaBOOM are footing the bill for the new playground.

"It is our hope this new playground can help heal some of those wounds, and bring the Jenny Lind-Bohanon community together," organizers said in a news release before Saturday's playground-building effort.

Kids from the school had input on the design of the new playground. On Saturday, community volunteers gathered to make those dreams a reality.

"Lots of slides, lots of monkey bars, of course lots of ways of climbing," said Nicole Gourley, a vice president with Foresters Financial. "(Kids) were able to put their fingerprints all over this. ... It was very much a community-based input into this playground."

The new playground will open Monday.

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