Photo by Jenny Kirk Four-year-old Hudson Ogren, right, tries out the playground equipment as his aunt, Lindsey Frey, follows closely behind during the grand opening on Thursday for the new playground at Lynd Public School.

LYND — A lot of people came out to celebrate on Thursday at the grand opening for a new playground at Lynd Public School.

“It’s really cool,” soon-to-be fifth grader Jessie DeJaeghere said when asked what she thought of the playground equipment.

DeJaeghere’s mom, Stephanie, said she anticipates the playground being very popular with students.

“I bet the kids will be especially impatient to get to recess this year,” Stephanie DeJaeghere said.

The Lynd playground project took a few years to come to fruition.

“There were five of us on the Lynd PTO when we started this endeavor a few years ago,” Joann Condelli said. “We talked about trying to get a new playground and now it’s a reality.”

Along with Condelli, PTO members Sarah Nickelson, Crystal Pochardt, Suzie Rauch and Angie Hettling were especially instrumental in the effort.

“The PTO was very active in spearheading this and getting this off the ground,” Lynd Principal Jason Swenson said. “A new playground was very much needed.”

Swenson said he thought the grand opening went extremely well.

“There’s a lot of great support from our parents and community,” he said. “It was fun to come down here and work and see all the wonderful hands that made this happen.”

A lot of people donated their time and/or financially to the effort. Since the project was quite expensive, the Lynd PTO is continuing to take donations for some time.

“The PTO decided we wanted to redo the playground, so we did cookie dough fundraisers throughout the school year, through Papa Murphy’s,” Condelli said. “If someone wanted to buy cookie dough, it was $5 and we got $2 proceeds from that. We also did a Pastry Puffins fundraiser during the school year and at all of our holiday activities, we did donations. They got little ornaments at Christmas for giving a donation. At Easter, they got a little decoration if they gave a donation.”

Condelli said there was also a week of fundraising activities that took place this past school year.

“We were doing Pennies for Patients and we did a pizza party for the class that brought in the most money,” she said. “We had some of the classrooms that got $300 and almost $400 they brought in for it.”

Condelli, who serves as the business manager at Lynd School, said the PTO also went to the Lynd City Council to ask for a donation.

“They gave us $15,000 to go toward it,” Condelli said. “Then the fire department chief was there and said the fire department would help. They came to help (with the playground installation) and they also donated $500 worth during the fundraising week as well.”

Other local businesses and organizations also contributed to the playground effort.

“We had Lincoln-Lyon Electric give us a grant for $100 and Modern Woodman is matching everything we make (Thursday) to help with expenses,” Condelli said. “PTO is donating directly.”

Four benches are also going to be placed along the outside borders in the near future.

“We got four benches that will be coming that go around the edges and Studio Z donated for that, as did the Lynd reunion committee,” Condelli said. “We had Rauch’s tree service and Adam Hess and Hess Concrete put in all the concrete border. And D & G Excavating has been down here helping a lot. Then we also had Teddy Anderson down here moving some of our stuff.”

A reunion group donated $200 and an individual sent an additional $50. Many other donations came in from students, staff and administration at Lynd School as well as from people in the community and beyond.

“There have been a lot of donations,” Condelli said.

Condelli said the playground pieces were primarily assembled this past Thursday. More work continued the following day, she said.

“On the 27th, we came down and concreted it all in and put the wood fiber in around it,” Condelli said. “We had to wait until the concrete set, then we were able to put in the kinetic twirl thing on Wednesday. We put all the swings in on Wednesday, too.”

Condelli said numerous people, including Brent Demuth and Bruce Buchert, helped install the playground and other structures.

“We had quite a few people helping with it,” she said. “An old storage shed was renovated into this shelter with a tinned roof. Stuff in the (the old shed) was getting damaged from the rain. Then we purchased a storage shed to replace the old shed, so we could store phy ed equipment.”

Students were excited to learn that they could sign their names on one side of the new storage shed. Yanet Carasa waited patiently as her children, Leondre Jackson, Nakia Jackson and Rosemary Maldonado took turns writing on the gray structure. Then they went to take part in more of the activities offered during the grand opening.

“It was a really nice day,” Carasa said. “And it was especially nice that there were no mosquitoes.”

Jasper Pochardt’s favorite activity was the minnow races. His face lit up and his arms shot up in the air when his minnow crossed the finish line first.

Soon-to-be Lynd School kindergartner Jax Wurscher seemed to thoroughly enjoy shooting golf balls off tees using a water gun, while Emma Janssen had fun trying the flamingo toss.

Other activities included a fish pond, bean bag game, bubbles, a sprinkler and the opportunity to fill a plastic necklace with colored sand.

“We came out to support the school and check out the new playground equipment,” Danielle Ogren said. “My son (Hudson) loves it. And my daughter (Harlow) is over there doing all the games and loving it, too.”

Ogren, who was also accompanied by her husband, Jed Ogren, and sister, Lindsey Frey, said she especially liked that the old playground’s rock surface was replaced by cushiony wood fibers.