Hi, I have information on the permanant shading systems and am based in Jacksonville, FL. My husband and I own a landscape design firm and offer this product to our clients. If any of you would like more information you can email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Originally posted by azmomx5: We just finished installing 2 large shade structures over the playground this year. Combined, they were $18,500. But we're in Arizona, and we really pushed the skin cancer issue to the parents and the community. Plus, with the strong winds, we had to get something guaranteed to withstand the weather for years and years. But it was like pulling teeth to raise the money. We couldn't get grants because we hadn't been working the various sun awareness programs yet. If your school is closing in 5 years, you may want to get something less permanent, but I can't imagine that the camping awnings would be tough enough to withstand the weather AND the kids. There's safety regulations and liability issues, too, to keep it from falling on someone or being pulled down by a climber. What do the other schools in the district have? Any chance of soliciting local hospitals and medical professionals by pushing the skin cancer prevention angle? We got a $2000 donation from one hospital, although not much luck with local doctors. Write an article for the local paper about your plight -- maybe someone will come out of the woodwork!
The Schilling Foundation (Curt's wife) and their Sun program is cool, we were gonna try the program but moved from our old school, have no idea if they use it (they need 2 here in sunny 103 deg SoCal)
<font size=""1""><font color="#"black"">Liberalism is not an affilation its a curable disease. </font></font><br /><br><font color="#"gray"">~Wisdom of Shawnshuefus</font><br /><br><font color="#"blue""><font size=""1"">The punishment which the wise suffer, who refuse to take part in government, is...
AZmomx5 I would love to know where you got the shade coverings and what they are called. We are in south GA. and desperately need shade on our playground. Thanks for any info.
Sheri
We just finished installing 2 large shade structures over the playground this year. Combined, they were $18,500. But we're in Arizona, and we really pushed the skin cancer issue to the parents and the community. Plus, with the strong winds, we had to get something guaranteed to withstand the weather for years and years. But it was like pulling teeth to raise the money. We couldn't get grants because we hadn't been working the various sun awareness programs yet. If your school is closing in 5 years, you may want to get something less permanent, but I can't imagine that the camping awnings would be tough enough to withstand the weather AND the kids. There's safety regulations and liability issues, too, to keep it from falling on someone or being pulled down by a climber. What do the other schools in the district have? Any chance of soliciting local hospitals and medical professionals by pushing the skin cancer prevention angle? We got a $2000 donation from one hospital, although not much luck with local doctors. Write an article for the local paper about your plight -- maybe someone will come out of the woodwork!
We were thinking about doing this when my kids were in grade school. (Middle school now)
Anyway we did a playground project and there isn't any shade at our school. I contacted our playground rep. and he made some suggestions for us. The company is playworld systems. He suggested a Shade sort of like what you'd see at an amusement park. Poles would be installed permantely and the shades go up similar to a flag and connect to the other poles. It would have been nice but after the playground project I didn't have the energy to persue it. Good luck!