What could be more fun for an elementary school student than a new playground? Try three of them.
Thanks to a significant donation from the late Earl and Almeda Frazier, students at Soddy Elementary School will get to play on new, handicap-accessible playgrounds this year.
The donation came as a great surprise to school officials, said Soddy Principal Kim Roden. Almeda Frazier passed away in 2012, and her husband Earl passed in late 2015. Though they had no children of their own, the Fraziers willed about 12 percent of their remaining funds to the elementary school to benefit the children, Roden said.
“[Almeda Frazier]’s mother taught here years and years ago, back when it was K-12,” said Roden. “They always remained faithful to the community here. I never actually got to meet them personally, but I know they had strong ties here.”
Previously, the school had only one playground for all of its 400-450 students. Now specifically for the upper-grade students, that decades-old playground has been fitted with new equipment. The school has also constructed a new pre-K playground for the youngest to play on featuring more stationary, safe equipment for kids that age, and another playground for kindergartners through second-graders to use.