Playground

THE PARADE of children moved around the new playground, up a ramp and down the bright blue slide, led by one of Freedom Elementary School's most beloved adults, Bea Mathias.Mathias was the honored guest Thursday evening as the school's newest playground was dedicated. Although the parade and ribbon-cutting marked the playground's formal opening, Freedom students have been enjoying the new equipment throughout the school year.Mathias was a secretary at the school for more than 20 years and served as a parent volunteer and cafeteria, health room and playground aide when her daughters were students at Freedom.

As the school year winds down, a spirited group of fifth-graders from East Baltimore's Tench Tilghman Elementary has made sure it won't soon be forgotten.Since February, eight pupils and their teacher have undertaken three projects to improve their elementary school in the 600 block of N. Patterson Park Ave.Calling themselves the Legacy Club, the pupils have written letters to the school board asking for more classroom space, decorated the boys' and girls' bathrooms and, this weekend, they will finish fixing up their playground.

Teachers, administrators, parents and community activists want police to clean up a newly renovated playground at Eutaw-Marshburn Elementary School that is overrun by drug dealers, addicts and prostitutes.Without police intervention, they said at a meeting this week, kids can't play safely on the jungle gym, sliding boards or basketball court at the playground, which underwent a $100,000 face lift."Our children are in danger," said Damion Olds, 29, whose daughter, Antwauna Robinson, 8, is a third-grader at Eutaw-Marshburn.

It was a place for children with serious mental disabilities to have fun, a safe setting for autistic preschoolers to learn to climb and slide.Yesterday, parents, government officials and business leaders pronounced their disgust that someone set fire to the new playground at Dundalk's Bear Creek Elementary School on Tuesday night. They vowed to rebuild it."I couldn't believe someone would do something like this," said Dawn Andresen, mother of two autistic girls who are in the special program at Bear Creek.

A 2-year-old boy died yesterday after apparently falling from a small playground slide near his family's apartment complex in Columbia.Police and other officials released few details about the incident, which occurred about 12: 30 p.m., saying they were waiting for autopsy results.The child's 20-year-old uncle told investigators that he was supervising the boy, Dai'mon Akeil Anderson-Fowlkes, when the boy fell from the 6-foot-tall slide, said Sgt. Morris Carroll, spokesman for the Howard County police.

Rain, teasing sun, more rain, and still they dug and painted, splattered with the brown of the wet earth and the same bright green with which they covered each and every school door.The new asphalt lot, striped for baseball, basketball and hopscotch, glistened with the promise of afternoons of play for more than 300 children. City Springs Elementary School was finally getting a playground and a face lift and none of the volunteers who came to make it happen were going to let a little downpour get in the way.For Principal Bernice Whelchel, counselor Janet Cottman, parent liaison Irona Pope and the teachers and students who joined the Serv-A-Thon volunteers at the school on Caroline Street in East Baltimore yesterday, it was an affirming day and a happy ending to what had been a very up-and-down week.

Preliminary autopsy results indicate that the death of a 2-year-old boy on a Columbia playground Tuesday was not caused by a fall, but by a medical condition, Howard County police said.The death of Dai'mon Akeil Anderson-Fowlkes is being investigated by the state medical examiner, which might take several weeks, said Sgt. Morris Carroll of the Howard County police."They still have to do more tests," Carroll said. "But at this point, we feel that the child's death was not caused by the fall."

Anibal Brisueno had no time to waste. He grabbed his camera, dashed out the door of his Pimlico home and raced through the playground that separates Edgemere Avenue from Denmore Avenue. He wanted pictures of this event: The Denmore Apartments were coming down.Standing on one side of Denmore early last month as a bulldozer tore into the apartments on the even-numbered side of the street, Brisueno snapped photos. A smile flickered across his lips as the bulldozer ripped open yet another section of the apartments.

A 2-year-old boy died yesterday after apparently falling from a small playground slide near his family's apartment complex in Columbia.Police and other officials released few details about the incident, which occurred about 12: 30 p.m., saying they were waiting for autopsy results.The child's 20-year-old uncle told investigators that he was supervising the boy, Dai'mon Akeil Anderson-Fowlkes, when the boy fell from the 6-foot-tall slide, said Sgt. Morris Carroll, spokesman for the Howard County police.

Look at Lisa Gladden's tall, slender frame wrapped in such good looks and - if you're inclined to think stereotypically - you would think "model." But, as in most cases where stereotypical thinking is used, you'd be wrong.Try thinking ex-Marine. Ex-corrections officer. Former counselor to gang members in Boston before she moved to Baltimore.Try also thinking woman of action, as city officials found out earlier this year. Gladden lives within a block of Memorial Stadium, home of the depressingly mediocre Baltimore Ravens.

THE PROBLEM: A fence around a Fells Point playground needed repair. THE BACKSTORY: This week's Watchdog stems from a bit of misunderstanding. Karen W. Schardt often walks her dog at Thames Street Park in Fells Point, and she took note of an unfinished fence around the playground. "Half of that fence has been missing since last summer," she said. In an e-mail to Watchdog, Schardt described the orange construction netting as unsightly and wondered why it had been left that way after renovation last year.

When Jim Holman retired last year as a newspaper editor in Oregon and settled with his new wife in Hunt Valley, he never thought he'd launch a second career as an aerospace engineer. Holman, one of hundreds of volunteers who showed up over the past few days to rebuild a playground at the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Family Center at Stadium Place in Waverly that was destroyed in a fire last September, was assigned to help assemble a facsimile of a rocket, part of the playground's elaborate new climbing equipment.

The call is out for energetic community volunteers to rebuild the popular Waverly playground destroyed by an arsonist last year. "We need at least 1,000 persons to step forward," said Marisa Canino, president of Friends of Our Playground. "The fire was a senseless act of arson and we instantly moved to start rebuilding. I can't belive we are so close." Work crews began preliminary regrading and site work last week. The once-popular playing area - north of the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Family Center YMCA at Stadium Place, the former location of the old Memorial Stadium on 33rd Street - burned Sept.

A Harford County boy might earn Scouting's highest honor with a community project thousands of miles from his home in Jarrettsville. Life Scout Alex Griffith, 15, knows the criteria for the rank of Eagle involve service to the community, a school or church. Alex, adopted in 1994 by Dwight and Jenny Griffith, lived the first year of his life at a hospital for abandoned children in Krasnoyarsk, a city in the Siberian region of Russia. He wants to give the children living at Hospital No. 20 a playground.

Plastic playgrounds vulnerable to vandals It's a shame that a playground that so many volunteers worked on has been destroyed ("Waverly playground fire probed as arson," Sept. 11). However, massive destruction could have been avoided. Instead of building the climbing structure out of plastic, which is now severely charred and will have to be torn down, old-fashioned building materials such as wood and galvanized pipe could have been used. If you have ever tried to light a wooden board, you know that it is almost impossible to light unless you stack other flammable material under it and arrange the material to provide adequate draft and burning surfaces.

Police and fire officials said yesterday that they are investigating Tuesday's blaze at a community-built playground in Waverly as an arson, and firefighters fanned out into surrounding neighborhoods seeking tips as residents met to begin the rebuilding effort. On the parking lot of the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Family Center at Stadium Place, steps away from the charred remains of the playground, residents tossed money into a collection bucket last night and children held signs describing favorite features that they would like to see restored.

Fire destroyed the sprawling playground that thousands of volunteers built three years ago at the site of the old Memorial Stadium on 33rd Street, a blaze that community leaders called "devastating" as they vowed to rebuild. Residents and children walking from school watched from a hillside while about 35 firefighters doused the flames, which were spotted about 2:20 p.m. as plumes of thick, black smoke rose above the city. Fire officials said the cause was not immediately known, and arson investigators were exploring the possibility that the fire was set. As the fire continued to smolder, a police officer and a fire investigator at the scene talked to a juvenile who was seated in the back of a squad car with his head in his hands.

Autism group sets fundraiser The Autism Society of America and Pump It Up will sponsor "Bounce for Autism," a nationwide, community-based fundraiser to raise awareness and support for children with autism. Six "Bounces" will be held around the country next month and in June, with the first event to be held from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. April 1 at Pump It Up, 7184 Troy Hill Drive, Suite H, in Elkridge. A team of bouncers, some or all of whom may be affected by autism, will ask for donations to fulfill their pledge to bounce in the indoor inflatable playground.

Stan Edmister was an artist of public works, filling Baltimore with a parrot-green bridge paint scheme and fanciful playground equipment. He was also well-known for feeding hungry crowds his grilled mushroom sandwiches at city farmers' markets. The former Woodberry resident died of cancer Sunday at his home in Warrenton, Va. He was 69. "For the past 36 years, Stan Edmister has been one of Baltimore's more quietly influential citizens," a 2004 Sun article said. "I've always been contrary, always been an outsider," he said.

When I was in the first grade, there was no Women's World Cup soccer. There was only kickball. Before I ever laced up my cleats in an after-school league, I got my kicks sending a big, red bouncy ball as far as I could on the playground at recess. Rather than trying to figure out how to get kids to exercise more, America should spend its resources getting kids, particularly young girls, to play more. And the single best way to do that is to invest in recess. Play matters - more than we think.