Laughter and Joy Abound on New Playscape
“May this playground be a place of love and laughter, enduring in every heart in the Children of God,” reads one of many prayer flags that graced the new playscape during our Playscape Dedication Ceremony on Thursday, January 12. Click here to see photos and video clips.
The prayer flags were hung “with the hope that the wind will carry these blessings upon the kids who play below,” said Ashley Brandon, LS/MS Chaplain. Other prayer offerings include: “May new friendships be discovered here”, and “May this playground inspire all to be confident and to follow your dreams.”
Kindergarteners and first graders joined parents and faculty to sing, pray, and watch the special rosemary branch blessing unfold, led by Ashley Brandon, Reverend Whitney Kirby, Head of School Sean Murphy, and Head of Lower School Kama Bruce. Kama noted, “As adults, we have a special relationship with play, a relationship wrought in nostalgia and woven into our beings, for play is the location of our unfettered self discovery...Perhaps this is why we are so eager to watch children play. George Bernard Shaw reminds us that, ‘We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.’”
There will be no shortage of discovery with features like monkey bars, slides, a xylophone and steel drum, a dinosaur fossil dig area, sand scoops, and a topsy turny spinner. Kama said, “Now it is up to you, the children of this community, to bless this space with the sounds of your joyful play, to populate it with friendships, to create imagined worlds together and most of all to play for the sake of play...May you never stop playing and may you never grow old.”
St. Andrew’s thanks especially, in the words of Kama Bruce, “Our donors, for their clarity of mind, belief in this vision, and a deep understanding of what play means to children.”
Thank You to St. Andrew’s Playscape Donors
The Sheth Family
Carol and Jon Gormin
Huyen Cao and Shane Hayes
Yvette and Jonathan Boatwright
Andrew and Leslie Morgan
Lynne Jamshed and Alex Chang
Anna and Jason Near
Ceecy and George Robinson
Julie and Patrick Willis
Jen and Richard Nield
