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Help playground rise up from ashes like phoenix

A burning match didn't torch community spirit in Lacoochee, but it certainly singed a tangible symbol of it.

Three children playing with matches are blamed for a fire that caused $35,000 damage to a playground erected by 100 volunteers just 10 months ago at the Lacoochee Boys & Girls Club.

Two brothers, ages 12 and 14, and a 13-year-old friend are charged with felony criminal mischief for the Oct. 3 fire. The brothers are members of the Boys & Girls Club, and their father helped install the playground in December 2004, part of the community effort that saw Washington, D.C., charity KaBoom! and Home Depot donate the $70,000 playground. The equipment was not insured. The club has no money to replace it.

"It's so sad. What you don't want to happen is have people say, "See? We spent all this money and see what happened.' But it's an isolated incident, it doesn't reflect the whole community," said Isa Blanford, a community planner for the Pasco Housing Authority.

She was one of the early organizers of now-waning efforts to invigorate Lacoochee after community tensions arose in the wake of the 2003 shooting death of sheriff's Lt. Charles "Bo" Harrison.

The status of her group, Circle of Hope Community Partnership?

"Dead in the water," Blanford acknowledged Thursday.

It is unfortunate, but not unexpected considering the diminishing interest from within the community that Blanford had lamented previously. The Lacoochee Boys & Girls Club playground shouldn't be victim of a similar fate.

Three juveniles, old enough to know better, apologized for the damage and said the fire was an accident, not arson. They had been playing with matches beneath the playground and failed to extinguish the smoldering mulch when they left.

We're glad the children realize their transgression. It would have been more beneficial to the community's other youngsters if the trio had learned their lesson a little earlier. They had been sent to the Juvenile Detention Center a week earlier after being accused of breaking into Lacoochee Elementary School, and the 13-year-old had been caught playing with fire at the club four months ago.

Helping to rebuild the playground would be a suitable part of a community service sentence they may receive.

"They obviously went down the wrong road," said Richard Someillan, a Boys & Girls Club official. "Which is exactly why we need a Boys & Girls Club here."

Indeed. The club faced uncertainty in the past, but was rescued by a state grant, community donations and fundraising, and by affiliating with the Boys & Girls Club of Tampa.

Resources within this hamlet of 1,345 people are limited. Household income in Lacoochee is just more than $15,000, compared to the countywide figure of $33,000. Two summers ago, amid the community soul searching that followed Harrison's death and the subsequent arrest of murder suspect Alfredie Steele Jr., residents pointed to a lack of recreational opportunities for youths as one of their leading concerns.

The impressive community playground, built at the Boys & Girls Club's branch at the Cypress Farms public housing complex on Patti Lane, was a worthy response.

Someillan is now seeking help from civic groups in the area to try to duplicate the effort.

It would be welcome. To do nothing is akin to allowing Lacoochee's sense of community to go up in smoke.

[Last modified October 14, 2005, 01:40:20]