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Community Profile
Recess Has Never
Been This Much Fun
Creating a playground for all children
BY KAREN SECORD
Jane Howlett (left) with Suzanne Hayes, who was responsible
for overseeing the St. Emily playground project.
Moss doesn’t grow under Jane Howlett’s feet.
Jane and a room full of dedicated parents have transformed
the windy, nondescript, unlandscaped playground
at their young Barrhaven school into a mecca of
possibility. And they have a message for other parents with
children in squeaky-clean, brand-new schools: You can do
it too!
Jane, a stay-at-home mother of Will, 9, Ella, 6, and Cal,
4, is a member of the St. Emily Catholic Elementary School
Council and chair of the grant committee for an ambitious
“R” Yard project.
Working with the school board, other parents, and the
city, Jane applied for and received $10,000 from the City of
Ottawa’s TREE program, $6,630 from the Green
Due West Magazine • Page 28 • Spring 2008
Partnership program, and $5,000 from the Ottawa Carleton
Catholic School Board to make a sustainable transformation
of their schoolyard. Funds were also provided by TD
Friends of the Environment and Minor Capital.
“The city may provide the funding but you need community
leaders to put a project like this in motion,” says
Gloucester-South Nepean Councillor Steve Desroches.
“Jane put a solid case together for these grants. She is a
community leader.”
But it took more than money. It took tenacity, commitment,
dedication, a whole lot of fundraising, and a willingness
to think outside the box.
And, probably more than anything else, it took vision.
St. Emily’s Principal, Micheline Harvey, explains, “It
PHOTO: KAREN SECORD