Make Our Alaskan Play Yard Accessible for All!

This fundraiser is organized by Winterberry Parent Guild.

Tax deductible

Fix our School’s All-Natural Alaska Play Yard

Winterberry Charter School kids love being outside. At our Waldorf-inspired school, fresh air and the rhythms of nature are cornerstones of our education. Here in Anchorage, it’s also a huge part of our Alaska lifestyle.

Through rain, shine, snow, snow, snow and sleet – 250 sets of active, K-8 feet have maximized the daily use of our little play yard. Quite frankly: it’s been loved to bits. Now, we need your help to fix the play yard and to finish it, so we can learn, play and be healthy outside at school.

Since Winterberry moved to this neighborhood in 2012, poor drainage issues have unfortunately amplified and hampered children’s ability to play. It’s now a struggle to keep our school clean with 250 sets of muddy boots and rain suits moving from mucky puddles to classrooms, through hallways and back again.

We are proud that Winterberry makes Waldorf-inspired public education tuition-free to our Anchorage community. This year, we really need your wide-scale help to mitigate the mud factor and finish a project of this magnitude and forethought. Our children’s play yard very much needs accessible, inclusive pathways, and some actual play equipment. We’ve done the legwork, the planning, the relationship-building, and we’re ready to go.

As a charter school, Winterberry is responsible for all building and maintenance costs and this comes from our all-school budget. Building a play yard is outside that funding source, hence the need for your donation.

Donate NOW to fix drainage issues before first day of school

Improve Drainage (for much of the year, it’s covered in mud)
ADA Accessible Pathways (inclusive of all children and families)
Proper Ground Cover (for Movement Class and rigorous activity)
Waldorf-inspired Play Equipment (social, natural, imaginative, developmental)
Outdoor Learning Spaces (gathering/stage area, food garden, fruit trees, rain garden)
Accommodate Ages and Stages (dedicated space for kindergarteners, social areas for middle schoolers)

Build a Cherished Space for Social, Natural, Imaginative, Inclusive Play

We need an innovative, sustainable yard that stimulates the rich outdoor imaginative play that children need to grow. Our project is unique in Alaska. It’s founded on the tenets of Waldorf education: holistic development of a child’s head, heart and hands. We’ve planned for a play yard that invites children to socialize, exercise and innovate with natural materials amid Alaska’s dramatic seasons. The play yard serves kindergarten through Grade 8, and its design needs to include children of all abilities and phases of development.

Partner With Us

We cherish your gifts and donations toward fixing and finishing a play yard that is a huge daily force in the lives of 250 students (who thrill at recess in the great outdoors) at our Waldorf-inspired school.

As a charter school of the public Anchorage School District, Winterberry pays building and maintenance costs out of our all-school budget. With current shipping and construction costs, the $200,000+ needed to fix and build the play yard is outside of our regular funding source.

So we are looking to YOU to join this grassroots, volunteer-driven, homegrown and widely supported heavy lift! Winterberry families have the will, the skillset, and the momentum. Please mash the donate button to share the means to make it happen. By funding these much-needed fixes, you’ll make gobs of kids in snowsuits look forward to playing in rain, shine, snow, snow, snow and sleet every school day.

THANK YOU

All donations are tax deductible through Winterberry Parent Guild 501c-3 and tax receipts will be issued through Go Fund Me.

LINK TO Friends of Winterberry Play Yard Project website: https://sites.google.com/view/friendsofwinterberryplayyard

LINK TO Winterberry Parent Guild website: https://www.winterberryparentguild.org/our-school