Showing they can swing it
CHERYL SCHWEIZER | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 6 years, 9 months AGO
Cheryl Schweizer/Columbia Basin Herald Some lucky kids got to try out the brand-new swings at Park Orchard during the dedication ceremony Thursday.
Senior Reporter Cheryl Schweizer is a journalist with more than 30 years of experience serving small communities in the Pacific Northwest. She began her post-high-school education at Treasure Valley Community College and enerned her journalism degree at Oregon State University. After working for multiple publications, she has settled down at the Columbia Basin Herald and has been a staple of the newsroom for more than a decade. Schweizer’s dedication to her communities and profession has earned her the nickname “The Baroness of Bylines.” She covers a variety of beats including health, business and various municipalities. | April 20, 2018 3:00 AM
MOSES LAKE — Park Orchard Elementary students walked a lot of laps and all that walking paid off. The students dedicated their brand-new swing set, and got to play on it for the first time, Thursday morning.
“This is an enormous accomplishment,” said principal Scott West. Students raised money to buy the new playground equipment through the school walkathons, raising about $13,000. That was enough money “for our school to do something really big,” and that big thing was a new set of swings.
The school playground didn’t have swings. West said a fourth-grader was talking to him last fall and said she’d been waiting for swings since kindergarten.
So about 485 students walked and raised money for the new swings. “You did this,” West told the students. "This is an enormous accomplishment."
But even $13,000 couldn’t pay for the whole project. Brad Summers of Summers Excavation volunteered his time and equipment for site prep, West said.
All Park Orchard students who were at school Thursday morning assembled on the playground to look at the new swings and get a safety lesson. Once that was done the swings were available during recess to all kids who wanted to try them out.
Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at education@columbiabasinherald.com.
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