By Jet Burnham | [email protected]

It took a decade of school fundraisers to earn the $70,000 needed to buy new playground equipment for Vista Elementary. 

“People just have no idea how much playground equipment for a school costs,” Principal Diane Phillips said. “We're really excited to get some really nice pieces.”

The new playground was revealed in a ribbon-cutting ceremony at Back to School Night Aug 20. The city mayor and generations of Vista students attended the unveiling to celebrate the end of many years of hard work.

“Our PTO and school have been saving funds for the last 10 years to make upgrades to the current playground,” said Vista PTO President Tonya Fetzer. “Students that are in high school are finally able to see the decade-long promise fulfilled from when they were Vista students.”

Phillips said it took a long time to earn enough money because schools requires a higher quality, more expensive kind of equipment than what is used for homes or for public parks.

“You have maybe 100 kids, at the most, on a park playground,” Phillips said. “Here, you've got 600 kids, three times a day on the equipment. So it has to be really, really, super high quality.”

For stability and safety, the school playground structures are secured 6 feet deep into the ground, which increases the costs for labor.

The modern design of the new playset provides climbing and spinning activities for students of all ages.