Playground for Rural First Nation Community

- Arrived in Lytton community centre around early afternoon August 11th and started building with the finishing touches coming around August 13th.

- Usage of cement, heavy tools, digging, and many more to help create this project with many volunteers coming to help with food, tools, and many more.

- Up to 10 volunteers with multiple supporters from companies and sponsors to get our materials, also made social media posts thanking each one of the people involved in this project 

- Successful in finishing the project on scheduled time with no injuries, everything went well and how it was supposed to go.

The Lytton playground build is now underway after three years of being postponed due to Covid, floods, and fires! At the beginning of May, we received an old playground that will be repurposed for part of the Lytton build. The original one we received last year was not safe enough to resuse.

Right now, our team is in the process of sanding and power coating it. During the final weekend in June, TPOP will install the refurbished playground and build the other parts of the playground for the Lytton First Nation.

It has been a long time coming, and TPOP is excited to finally be able to give these children the power of play.

Currently our project is on hold due to weather condition and snow.

Due to snow and frozen ground this project is on hold until spring when weather system changes.

Mean while we are working to raise more funds to be able to complete this project. Unfortunately there is still a big gap in funds to be able to get this project complete. We reached out to a few corporations and NGOs to support this project as it will directly impact the children's mental health especially with all the recent traumatic events such as wild fires, mass grave, and land slide that happened around the community. 

Our playground material is stored in Squamish British Columbia. 

As we got ready to start the construction and installation of this playground project for the summer of 2022, another wildfire started in the area and caused emergency evacuation for the entire community of the Lytton West Side. This was the second massive wildfire in the area second year in the row.

First wildfire in the area destroyed nearly 90% of the town. This second fire spread on the other side of the Fraser River and destroyed some of the West Side community, where the playground is planned to be installed.

Once the wildfire passed through the town, due to hazardous material there was no construction possible. 

Meanwhile we have been working on the refurbishing the playground and hiring team in the area.  

If the winter does not arrive early we are hopping to complete this project this year. 

Links:

• Report on the wildfire

Recently the snow in the West Side Lytton has melted and we are able to move to the site to build the playground. 

There has been a hold off on this project due to pandemic, forest fire, flood, landslide, snow, etc. but now its time and we are going to complete this project.

We have picked up the playground from town of Merritt and transported to Squamish to complete the refurbishing/ up cycling. (Photos attached) Currently The Power Of Play team is working with the playground manufacture and band to repurpose the playground. 

The repurposing process will include going through all the play element pieces and component, identifying what is refurbish-able and what needs to be replaced. Then we start with sanding, removing rust, powder coating, and replacing broken and missing pieces. 

Once playground is ready, it will be shipped to West Side Lytton to be installed. 

Meanwhile we are calling for volunteers and businesses to partner up with us to bring the power of play to this well deserved community. 

We are planning to start the installation by late July.