{"id":55968,"date":"2025-06-15T19:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-15T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelaker.ca\/?p=55237"},"modified":"2025-06-15T19:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-06-15T22:00:00","slug":"new-accessible-playground-enfield-district-school-charlee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/?p=55968","title":{"rendered":"New accessible playground announced for Enfield District school thanks to Charlee’s advocacy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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ENFIELD:<\/strong> The current school year isn\u2019t even done yet, and Charlee Smith is already eagerly anticipating school being back in September.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s because the young Enfield girl, who is in a wheelchair so has some accessibility needs, has a good reason.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You see when school returns to Enfield District School in September, it\u2019s anticipated a new accessible playground will have been installed allowing Charlee to play with her friends or others who also have accessibility issues to play on the new playground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cI\u2019m really happy because we\u2019re getting an accessible playground,\u201d said Charlee outside the school under the warm sunshine. \u201cThat means if we get it everyone who comes to Enfield school with a disability can play too.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cI\u2019m excited and can\u2019t wait for September.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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Charlee Smith reads her speech at the announcement. (Healey photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Charlee got the news of the new playground to come to the school on Friday morning June 13 during an unplanned assembly\u2014held early enough so it wouldn\u2019t interfere with gym class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the assembly, Charlee and her peers at the school learned from Hants East MLA John A. MacDonald that the province would contribute $150,000 towards the accessible playground construction. The school had raised $32,000 through fundraisers with the PTA and SAC, along with local sponsors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Municipality of East Hants is also contributing $52,000 towards the project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Charlee and her mom Chelsea had initially been told the playground project was denied funding, but then they wrote to MacDonald, and he managed to get the province on board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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She was told that her hard work led to the announcement happening at the school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAll the hard work started with me because I needed an accessible playground so I could play on it with my friends,\u201d said Charlee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All the fundraising over the past two years that the school did went on to the playground fund.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Principal Heather von Kintzel speaks to the assembly of students at the school. (Healey photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Heather von Kintzel, the principal at the school, said it was a full team effort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe could not have made this happen without the support of our school, family of school supervisor Tina Knol and Regional Executive director Karen Cooling backing and supporting everything we did as well\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MacDonald said this type of announcement is what happens when people work together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCouncil and the province have worked together on countless projects, and yes Charlee\u2019s mom had a lot to do with today,\u201d he said. \u201cBut also, Charlee wrote a letter as I found out they had gotten a rejection letter that money wasn\u2019t available. I wasn\u2019t happy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCharlee wrote a nice letter that her mom gave me, and it led me to a conversation with some people telling them they needed to find some money to make this happen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI got emotional reading your letter Charlee, so it made it pretty easy for me to jump and get them the money.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tender for the project is out and will close July 3, Cooling said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This means the playground is expected to be completed hopefully when school returns in September or shortly after.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Charlee (front row middle) and all the helpers that are making the installation of a new accessible playground at Enfield District School possible. (Healey photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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[adrotate banner=”78″] [adrotate banner=”218″] ENFIELD: The current school year isn\u2019t even done yet, and Charlee Smith is already eagerly anticipating school being back in September. That\u2019s because the young Enfield girl, who is in a wheelchair so has some accessibility needs, has a good reason. You see when school returns to Enfield District School in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":56117,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[965,12,957],"tags":[1803,5784,1871,8585,390,2822,8586],"class_list":["post-55968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-east-hants","category-featured","category-news","tag-accessibility","tag-accessible-playground","tag-ccrce","tag-charlee-smith","tag-enfield","tag-enfield-district-school","tag-hnats-east-mla-john-a-macdonald"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55968\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/56117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}