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Having succeeded in securing a site for their "colorful and engaging destination playground," the group of volunteers organized as Soldotna Community Playground, is excitedly looking forward to the next step in the process -- Design Day, which has been scheduled for Thursday.

Early that morning, a professional playground designer will travel to Soldotna Elementary School to get ideas from children there as well as from Soldotna Montessori charter school pupils before sitting down with the kids in the school's commons area to begin his design drawing.

Designer Barry Segal will already have been given ideas and drawings from school children from Kalifornsky Beach, Sterling and Redoubt elementary schools as well as Kaleidoscope charter school and Boys and Girls Club members who meet at Redoubt.

The open approach to designing the playground destined for Soldotna Creek Park is in keeping with the volunteer organization's motto: It takes a great community to build a great playground.

After meeting with the children to get their input, Segal will create a schematic design, which will be unveiled at a Design Day Celebration at 6 p.m. at Soldotna High School, according to Dana McDonald, general coordinator for Soldotna Community Playground.

She said the school children were not given any suggestions of design elements in advance for the new playground.

"It will be all their own ideas," McDonald said.

The designer also will visit the Learning Tree Montessori school on Wednesday to get the ideas of 3- to 5-year-old preschoolers.

Input from all the local students "will become the inspiration behind the overall design," according to a printed statement from Soldotna Community Playground.

Themes such as the northern lights, a pipeline tunnel, a fishing boat and a time line of Alaska statehood would brighten the days of central Kenai Peninsula tots.

A plastic composite playground with ramps and stairs, slides and mazes in imagination-stimulating shapes of boats, drums and wild animals is being envisioned. The playground is to be designed by Leathers Associates from Ithaca, N. Y., the firm that designed playgrounds in Seward, Girdwood and Talkeetna as well as Haines, Juneau and nearly 200 other places throughout the United States and in other countries. All Leathers' designers are certified in playground safety.

During the celebration at SoHi, the community will see a presentation about the playground and the children's designs, and the event will include food, entertainment and a fund-raising raffle. One-dollar raffle tickets will be sold for family-oriented baskets.

Additionally, McDonald said the organization will be selling fence pickets at $30 per individual or $50 per business to raise money for the playground, estimated to cost $250,000. The pickets, made of treated wood or structural plastic, will make up the fence around the playground.

High school and middle school students also have been included in the community project.

"They've been asked to help with art murals and we may go to the high school wood shops for help with making the pickets," McDonald said.

"When it comes to actually building (the playground), we're asking the football teams and the hockey teams for their help," she said. "We may even ask the school bands to play music while we're building. Anybody can volunteer."

McDonald said, "The meat and potatoes is the pride of the community coming together."

Phil Hermanek can be reached at phillip.hermanek@peninsulaclarion.com.