Playground Clean-Up Day Update

Project Day Thank You

The project day (Tuesday, August 6th, 2024) was a huge success! Monforton Moves wants to thank and recognize the people, businesses, and organizations that made it possible.

• Thank you to the many Monforton families and individuals who came out on August 6th, 2024 to dedicate their skills and muscles to the playground clean up.
  
  Special thanks to:
  • Lyndee Haire and Andy Rowse for organizing the entire effort and making it a reality.
  • Karl Cook for spending the entire day piloting our heavy machinery and for donating/hauling a trailer full of top soil.
  • Justin Sharp graciously donated his time and chainsaw skills to clean up the donated logs we received before the project day.

• Thank you to everyone who donated money and materials to make this entire effort possible. At last report we had raised nearly $4000! We were able to fund this entire clean-up effort and have money left to accelerate additional projects.
  
  Special additional thanks to:
  • Monforton neighbors, the Henley’s, who gave us the very large wood rounds and trunks we used to create the new playground features
  • Our Elementary school secretary, Susan Flikkema, for arranging the Knife River donation of materials transportation.
  • Britney Gilder for reaching out to Cosmic Pizza and The Buck to get our pizza donations.
  • The Hamilton’s (Mike our facilities manager, Laura our middle school secretary, and Maddie our para educator) helped arrange for a huge donation of materials that will become our swing-set wear mats. This saved the project about $2000 in expenses.
  • Mr. Lewis Mills from Whitehall for donating the swing-set wear mat materials
  • AMP Bozeman and the Aaker Family for volunteering their shooter truck and hauling services for our future phases.
  • The Monforton School Foundation for providing $700 in grants for materials and supplies.

• Thank you to the many local businesses and families who donated materials and supplies to the project.

Still to do

We have a few tasks still to finish before school starts. Those include:

• Painting another blacktop game we invented called “Floor is Lava”
• Finishing the border around the new swing-set and log jump and filling it with more playground bark
• Refreshing the bark in the merry-go-round
• Installing the new basketball backboards and nets

We are still on the hunt for more:

• 12+ more yards of playground bark. It’s $38/yard from Western Pines.
• Large logs and trunks to make more sitting/jumping/climbing installations
• Red Scoria (Salmon) gravel to install at the school entrance. It’s $82 a yard from Scenic City (hauled from the lot) and we need 4-5 yards.

Follow the Project

We made excellent progress but have much more we want to do. To stay up to date on the Playground restoration project, sign up for the PAWS email list or follow us on Facebook and Instagram.

Next Phase of the Playground Effort

The momentum we’ve built has been remarkable. Every day the community has brought us more and more resources and opportunities. We are grateful and very excited about what we’ll be able to accomplish. This was just the beginning – we are far from done.

Monforton Moves will schedule an informational meeting about the Playground Plan/Vision for when school is back in session. We’d love to share what we are thinking, hear your thoughts, and brainstorm strategies for making the plan a reality. Keep an eye out for an announced date/time.

If you have other skills, resources, or connections you wish to contribute, contact president@monfortonmoves.org. We can use all sorts of business, photography, design, organizational, and communication skills in completing this multi-year journey.

Project Day Photos and Video