Opening Graphic:

	A Playground called Miracle

Amy Truax, Playground Rebuild Coordinator, Parkersburg, Iowa:
Well two weeks after the tornado Dan Bruins who is the local rotary club president and police chief Chris Luhring decided that we needed something to rebuild the playgrounds in Parkersburg so that we were attractive to families because the children of the community lost so much when the tornado came through on May 25th.  So they have started a couple of weeks after the tornado to make sure that there were people there was something in place where people could make donations to put forward and get in motion the idea of working through  this recovery process by making sure we have a playground and places for our children to play.
The money for rebuilding our parks a lot of the money came from individual donors from all across the country from the little old lady in West Des Moines to a different church organization in Minnesota. It was a very concerted effort to try and get all those monies in one place. The Lincoln Savings Bank has been a big player in trying to organize that. 
We���ve also had some people do a lot of in-kind donations such as Mid-American Energy, Ryken Engineering; PCI has also done a lot for our efforts here also. The rotary Clubs of Iowa have been substantial in their contributions the great bank of the west in Des Moines and they came and presented a check back in April for thirty eight thousand dollars to help with this effort but along with the individuals giving the Miracle Recreation Equipment Company did a dollar for dollar match to allow for this to be possible so we raised two hundred and fifty thousand dollars and they did a dollar for dollar match of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to make this a reality. We���re close to the that two hundred fifty thousand dollar mark what we are still a little short on is we are short about thirty thousand dollars cuz we built one build one playground on east end of town and we are building this playground on the west end of town but we are still looking to build a playground at the elementary school. Right now the fifth grade classrooms are in the spot where the playground should be so we are still trying to raise some money to help make that a reality as well. 
When we looked at rebuilding the playgrounds we looked at the different areas. We���re at the swimming pool park today and there was playground equipment here that was destroyed in the tornado a lot of it was very antiquated and very outdated so a lot of that was just updating the equipment and making it something long term. Making it something for we have a have a playground area for younger children so that they have a place to play. We have a playground area for older children so that the two aren���t interfering because a lot of times there is a lot of competition between the two age groups and making sure that there���s something available for all of our children. Also we built a playground on the east end of town which didn���t exist prior to the tornado. But it gives us a place to spread out our community as well as a lot of the concentration on the west end of town. It is also going onto the east end of town as well.
 The playgrounds have a very strong impact onto the community what it says is we want young families to rebuild here we value our children we want our children to feel that we haven���t forgotten them in the in the whole disaster. When we were on the east end of town the kindergarten students would come over and they would bring signs and they would bring cookies and they were just so excited for all the volunteers to be here to put this together. The other day we had a group of fourth grade students and they their eyes are just big and they are so excited to come down here and be able to utilize all this equipment and be able to have a place to play and place to grow and a place to heal.
Right now we are at the swimming pool park and we have always known it as the swimming pool park but on Memorial Day on May 25th   this is going to be rededicated as Miracle playground and there are three reasons for that. One is the huge contribution that Miracle recreation Equipment Company made to make this a reality, the other reason is we are just amazed that there were no children killed with this tornado so to us that is also a miracle and the third item is that it is a miracle we have made so much progress since the tornado on May 25th.
It has taken a lot of volunteers to put this playground together we have been building for at the end it will be seven days and we are estimating its about 500 volunteers. Today we have about seventy volunteers with us. Uh we had volunteers today from Anamosa High School, their FFA and their industrial and technology areas. We have volunteers from Home Depot, from Best Buy, from the Woodward Academy and it���s been a lot of individuals too from the Parkersburg area. We have put out a call to ask for more volunteers and people just show up. When you don���t think you have anybody someone just comes out of the woodwork and makes it all happen���. (Thank you)���.