BY AMY HIGGINS
The Cincinnati Enquirer
LIBERTY TOWNSHIP -- The committee planning a massive playland has kicked off its efforts to raise $200,000 with the announcement of the sale of pickets.
For $50, donors can have their names -- or any 17 letters and numbers -- printed on pickets that will be used in the fence around the Fort Liberty Playland, a half-acre wooden structure with connecting mazes, tunnels, walkways and slides.
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TO LEARN MORE
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For information about the Fort Liberty Playland -- or to donate money, time or materials -- call Ken Krallman at 844-2616.
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But the Liberty Township parks committee needs ideas -- and volunteer labor -- to make the playland a reality by spring.
Parks committee member Chris Matacic said she expected hundreds of pickets to sell, but that won't come close to earning the parks department the $200,000 in cash and supplies needed.
Other fund-raising efforts range from private grants and corporate sponsorships to penny jars around the community on Nov. 14.
While their parents are out collecting and donating the money, the children of Liberty Township will be designing the playland. On Nov. 5 an architect will visit three Liberty Township elementary schools gathering ideas.
Construction -- with about 2,000 community volunteers wielding saws and hammers -- is to start in May.
The playland will be the third of its kind in Greater Cincinnati. A similar quarter-acre Megaland -- about half the size of the planned Fort Liberty Playland -- was built last fall in Colerain Township. And another in Mount Washington, dubbed 1,000 Hands, went up in May. All are designed by Leathers & Associates of Ithaca, N.Y.
