Thanks to a concerted effort involving the Dallas Cowboys tight ends, a playground now sits where this morning there was only a vacant plot of land.
Jason Witten, Martellus Bennett, Martin Rucker, and John Phillips, Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders, and Cowboys mascot Rowdy — ugh, can we get rid of him already? — pitched in this afternoon with representatives from UnitedHealthcare, Uplift Education, organizers from KaBOOM, and community volunteers; rolled up their sleeves; listened to the obligatory opening speeches; yawned and stretched, maybe; and got to work building the playground.
By about 3 p.m., kids at Uplift Education's Williams Preparatory School had themselves a spanking new playground on which to incur some bumps, bruises, and gashes.
Hey, it’s kids, c’mon, that’s what they do on playgrounds no matter how much adults try to meddle.
The cool factor, well, cooler factor comes from the kids helping design the playground. They submitted drawings during a Design Day event in July, and today watched their visions, or a reasonable facsimile thereof, become reality, all in a matter of hours.
Cool. Oops, sorry, already said that.
Bruce Felps owns and operates East Dallas Times, an online community news outlet serving the White Rock Lake area. He likes seeing communities pull together like that, but he doesn’t like Rowdy all that much.
