Two tons of playground equipment, 260 volunteers and a year's worth of planning and fundraising will finally come together this Sunday when the Playground Project begins construction on a new playground at the Murrell School. Playground Project, established in September by senior Jess Demorest, is a community development project with a goal to clean up the unusable playground at the Murrel School, which serves behaviorally disabled children.

"I wanted to help improve Nashville with a community project," Demorest said. "I ended up at the Murrell School ... the current outside space is sending a message that we didn't want it to send them."

The Murrell School's current playground is unsafe and inadequate, according to the Playground Project's Web site.

"The playground had no drainage system, three huge puddles covered the whole area, the climbing equipment was rusted, the fences around the perimeter were smashed in and bent," said sophomore Ashley Simakas, Playground Project committee member. "Many times teachers had to come in before school started and they would find alcohol bottles ... occasionally there are homeless people sleeping there in the morning."

The goal of the Playground Project is to rebuild the playground in hopes of creating a safe space for the students at the Murrell School to play and learn in.

"We are creating a place where they can expend some of their excess energy, learn from each other and know each other's bounds, so they can have a better work atmosphere inside," Simakas said.

Demorest was inspired to create the Playground Project after she completed a HOD class that explored the relationship between physical space and its effect on community. "In the beginning of the year I pulled some friends together ... I had a group of people who were willing to adopt my project, and we had our first meeting in December," Demorest said.

The group has spent the entire academic year designing the playground with input from Murrell School teachers and students and have raised over $19,000 to cover the playgrounds costs.

One committee member's job was to coordinate design ideas with the Murrell School. The kids at the school were asked to write essays and draw pictures of what they wanted in a playground.

"The students were enthralled (when we asked them for their ideas), even the teachers were standing up and raising their hands offering ideas," Simakas said.

The hardest part of planning the playground, Demorest said, was a lack of general playground knowledge.

"The price has been the most shocking part," Demorest said. "I had no idea that a fence could cost $12,000 or that mulching the whole playground would cost $4,000."

The initial cost of the project, when calculated in November, was estimated at $40,000. Since then the cost of the project has been more than halved. "We have gotten more personal contractors ... now it's only going to cost $19,000," Simakas said.

Preconstruction for the playground will take place on Friday and Saturday. The big renovation day will be on Sunday when 260 volunteers will construct the playground. Demorest plans to have the playground open for students on the following Monday.