Kingdom for Kids

print this page

Centennial Kingdom for Kids at  Smith Elementary - Completed!!        Watch the transformation at Smith Elementary!  <     On November 2nd and 3rd the Rotary Club of San Antonio completed its 11th “Kingdom for Kids” community playground at Smith Elementary School.  Smith is located on our city’s east side at 823 S. Gevers and serves over 500 underprivileged children.  For over 14 years the school has been asking for a playground.   When Rick Cavender received a request from the School’s principal to consider building a play structure for the children, he decided to take a tour of the school grounds.  Assisting the Rotary Club once again as they have since 1997 was the Youth Service Ambassadors at City Year San Antonio.  City Year Corps members provide educational support to children in inner city schools across the city.  Paul Garro, Executive Director of City Year and fellow Rotarian joined Rick and other Rotarians on the tour.   Upon arrival, it was immediately noticed that the children had very little to support physical activities or any outdoor recreation.  The 100 year old school retains a beautiful design and has expansive grounds on which the children could play…but there was no playground for the older children and only a small plastic structure on the rear campus for the little ones.  Rick witnessed the children literally running on the asphalt surface in the rear campus as their recreational activity.   The Stage was set!  Over the course of 10 months, Rotarians raised over $110,000!  Deepak Agrawal from the Rotary Club in Rajkot India sent support after learning about the project from his daughter Nupur.  She called his attention to it after attending a Rotaract Meeting at her Trinity University.  Rotary kindness turned in to motion from far and wide!   Materials were ordered by fellow Rotarian Darrell Lawson and his company Creative Components.  Darrell and his Team have led the Rotarian and City Volunteers over the past 8 projects!  His skilled Team prepares the site early in the week of the build to set some of the structure in place.  Over 475 Volunteers signed in to help at the registration over the two days of the build.   The campus has been transformed with beautiful new landscaping, a working garden for the children to learn from, picnic benches now decorating the campus, a new basketball court, new tetherball posts, a labyrinth maze , four square courts and college theme murals on the walls of the back campus.   Thanks to all our supporters, donors and volunteers for making this the best Kingdom for Kids yet!

Support our next Kingdom for Kids project at The Winston School!!