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Community unites to rebuild playground

After a fire destroys the new facility in Lacoochee, more than 200 people come back together to rebuild it.

By JAMAL THALJI
Published December 16, 2005

[Times photos: Dan McDuffie]

From top clockwise, volunteer Evan Chisolm and Home Depot employees Tina Kahanek and Lisa Bolland paint the basketball court at the Lacoochee Boys and Girls Club on Thursday. They were among more than 200 volunteers who gathered at the club at 38749 Patti Lane to rebuild the playground destroyed in an October fire.

	The Pasco County Sheriff's Office brought prisoners to help rebuild the playground.

LACOOCHEE - At 5 a.m. Thursday, Richard Someillan was the first one there. He stood alone in front of what was once the Lacoochee Boys and Girls Clubs' state-of-the-art playground before flames and arson destroyed it.

The Boys and Girls Clubs of Tampa Bay's director of facilities thought back to that October day he first surveyed the damage, when he made a promise he wasn't sure he could keep.

"I came over to see about 45 to 50 of my kids, all sitting around with tears in their eyes," he said. "Wondering why in the hell would people do this? So at that time I promised to them that we would rebuild it.

"I didn't know how, but we would rebuild it."

On Thursday, more than 200 volunteers came together to help Someillan keep his word.

It was a year ago that the community first came together on this spot, to assemble the $70,000 brand-new playground donated by Home Depot and the charity KaBoom!, which helps builds play spaces across the nation.

But then fire destroyed the slides and climbing platform in the early hours of Oct. 3. A blaze three boys said they accidentally set the night before in the mulch underneath smoldered out of control, destroying the community's playground. Two brothers, ages 12 and 14, and a 13-year-old were arrested, and the community was left in shock.

So Someillan made his promise, and the community swung into action. Home Depot and KaBoom! were willing to donate another playground if the Boys and Girls Clubs of Tampa Bay rallied financial and volunteer support. They not only raised $5,000 to restore the main playground structure, but another $5,000 for a new computer lab inside the club's nearby Lewis Abraham building.

Then Thursday, it was time to donate the muscle. By the afternoon a swirl of busy colors surrounded the playground: the orange T-shirts of Home Depot volunteers and the purple of KaBoom!; the grey T-shirts of Pasco County Professional Firefighters Local 4420, the green of the Pasco County Sheriff's Office, and the white-and-black stripe-clad prisoners they brought with them. The Kiwanis Club of Dade City was also a source of volunteers and money, too.

The picnic tables and benches are new. But the design is the same red, white and black structure erected a year ago, the design inspired by kids' drawings and picked by the community.

Meg Keaney, project manager for KaBoom!, said the charity didn't mind coming back to Lacoochee. "Just because this tragedy happened doesn't mean the kids don't deserve a playground," she said.

Lacoochee has seen more than its share of hardship. But what was it like, seeing the community come together, twice in a year, to give back to residents what was once thought lost for good?

"Look at all these people here," said George Jarosik, who runs the Lacoochee club. "It's beautiful. It's wonderful."

The children accused of setting the fire have not been named by the St. Petersburg Times because of their ages. Their cases are still in juvenile court. The brothers, members of the club, have since been ostracized by their peers, Someillan said.

But they were welcomed back Thursday - accompanied by father George Reyes, because they've been grounded ever since. He helped build the playground the first time. He helped again Thursday.

His memories of the park now are better than they were months before, when he saw flames from across the street and his sons arrested.

"They say a grown man doesn't cry," the 43-year-old Lacoochee father said. "I did."

[Last modified December 16, 2005, 00:54:19]