DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM Volunteers from the Home Depot and the Hawaii Job Corps Center joined Waimanalo-area volunteers yesterday in building a state-of-the-art playground based on local children's drawings at Weinberg Village in Waimanalo. Job Corps students helped to move a 600-pound bench into position.

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Groups work hard
so Waimanalo
kids can play

The Home Depot and KaBOOM!
help out Weinberg Village

One little playhouse and a rusty basketball hoop in the parking lot. For 72 children. That's all there was for recreation at Weinberg Village Waimanalo, where the closest park is a 15-minute drive away.

But that was yesterday. Today, thanks to the Home Depot and a charitable organization called KaBOOM!, there's a custom-designed playground at the transitional housing program for homeless families.

In a single day, about 80 volunteers from the Home Depot and dozens of residents assembled and installed swings, slides and other playground equipment. Now there's a basketball half-court, picnic tables and planter benches.

Resident Veronica Williams said her 6- and 4-year-old children "can't wait to get on it. Normally, I take them to Kailua District Park after school," about 15 minutes away by car, because "there wasn't really much to do here."

Now they can play with other kids in their own neighborhood and remain under the watchful eye of neighbors who know them.

DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM Henry Sealy and Ella Stevens, volunteers from the Home Depot, mixed cement yesterday.

Williams, a Polynesian dancer, said she taught children at Waimanalo village for three weeks so they could perform a thank-you program for the workers who helped with the playground.

Joscelyn Givens has five children who will enjoy the new equipment. Her son and daughter, Kaumoana and Kuuipo Makakau, were among those who decorated the steppingstones with their initials and brightly colored pebbles and shells.

All the children were asked to make drawings of their "dream playground" when the project was designed in October, said Brian Zinn, project manager for the Home Depot. Many of their ideas were incorporated into the design to give them a feeling of pride and ownership, he said.

This is the first playground project for the Home Depot and KaBOOM! in Hawaii. Both have partnered to construct nearly 700 playgrounds across the nation.

Kari Wallace, the Home Depot's district manager, said the company contributed more than $40,000 of equipment and supplies, from swings to paintbrushes.

And employees were eager to lend a hand, including Sandy Tiell and Marge Lepolo of the Pearl City store.

Tiell, who helped put picnic tables together and painted, said she volunteered "to keep kids busy and not on drugs -- out of trouble."

Lepolo said: "I know a lot of children need help so they stay off the streets. This gives them something worthwhile to do. I love to do this."

Holly Hollowach, director of Weinberg Village, got the project under way when she wrote KaBOOM! for a brochure in October 2003. Weinberg Village put up only $10,000 to pay for the project, she said, adding, "This is a blessing to me."