The Parent Teacher Organization at Spring Creek Elementary got an offer they couldn’t resist when the phone rang and NCH Healthcare wanted to donate $12,600 to pay for a new school sign.
“It’s wonderful! We are ever so grateful,” said Karen Leonardi, the school’s principal.
The offer puts to rest years of efforts by the parent-led organization to raise money to purchase a new sign that would replace the current sign that is hardly recognizable.
“We just really needed this because the sign that we have is kind of old and it’s got plants growing out of the center of it,” said Jennifer Schaffer, the PTO president who pushed to have the sign donated to the school.
Schaffer had heard that NCH donated money to schools because her daughter used to attend a Collier County school and figured she had nothing to lose by asking them to donate to a Lee County school.
“I called them and they said yes. They wanted to break into the Lee school market and Bonita Springs is closest to their hospital on Immokalee,” Schaffer said.
The donated sign will carry the name of the school and will be broken up into three parts, said Leonardi. It will also include an area to put up announcements about school events.
“We are so very excited because one part is a pencil, then a book and the third part will be a ruler. And it has our school colors of blue and white and has our panther on it,” said Leonardi about the sign that will be installed after it’s designed and built. “We just don’t have that amount of money to spend on a sign, we use our money for school materials, personnel and other things in the school.”
The school plans on having a ceremony with NCH Healthcare representatives and other members of the school after the installation is complete.
But the sign isn’t the first new addition students are seeing at their school. Ground cover has been removed in the playground area and officials are waiting for a slide to be shipped before installation begins.
“They are missing the side-by-side slide and from what I understand the mold for the fiberglass slide was damaged and its being repaired. We should have our slide soon,” said Leonardi, who is working to have the rest of the play equipment installed with safety precautions around the area where the slide goes.
The slide should be delivered and installed by mid-November.
The installation of the new playground equipment might coincide with the completion of the second covered bus ramp at the front of the school.
The posts that hold up the structure have been cemented in but yellow caution tape still surrounds the benches and keeps kids out of the plants in the area.
“The canopy that will cover the posts is still being fabricated but once that’s put in it will be nice to have that out there because it will keep our boys and girls dry when they get on the bus,” said Leonardi, who added that the covered bus ramp at the back of the school has already protected kids. “It’s really designed well because the covered area is over the benches out there so the kids are kept away from the edge and the moving cars.”
Leonardi had a say in the design of the ramps and is glad that before the end of the year, all work might be completed.
“We are all anxious to see it completed. We’ve been waiting a little while for (the canopy) but this will be ever so much better than walking the kids out with umbrellas,” she said.
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