By Rita Christopher, Courier Senior
Correspondent:
Susan Daniels knows
that play can be hard work. She and a committee of the Parent Teacher
Organization (PTO) at Essex
Elementary School raised
nearly $200,000, both in cash donations and gifts in kind to build a new
playground, now fully installed, at the school.
Some of the work, to
be sure, involved play. Sue and members of her committee visited a number of
playgrounds to see what kind of equipment they were using and they brought
along some experts in the field: their own children.
“We let the kids
play and then asked them what they liked,” she says.
The PTO, according
to Sue, agreed to undertake the playground project 2 1/2 years ago at the
suggestion of school administration. The existing playground, she says, was in
poor condition.
“There were repairs
over repairs and it was getting too much to fix,” she says.
Sue, then serving on
the PTO’s executive board, seemed a natural choice to head the playground
project. She has a 25-year career in advertising and marketing, including
project management and event promotion.
She used all those
skills to shepherd the playground project from idea to reality. The committee
began by considering different playground designs. The goal was something
low-maintenance, durable, and fun. Sue says the former playscape lasted only
about 10 years.
“We wanted something
that would be here 25 years from now,” she says.
The committee also
wanted equipment that would be accessible to everybody and would encourage
opportunities for creative play along with such classic activities as
clambering up monkey bars and down slides.
The result is two
playscapes–one designed for young children, and the other for older elementary
school students that incorporate elements like a giant tic-tac-toe game and a
maze along with a cargo net to clamber over and a climbing boulder.
Both playscapes have
ramps from the ground level to the highest point to make them fully handicapped
accessible.
With a design
concept and a cost estimate, Sue says, fundraising could begin. The playground
committee did everything from organizing a road race, 5K for Play, to applying
for grants for the new playscapes. Along the way there was a Bowling for Play
fundraiser, Golf for Play event, and an Evening of Play, including a riverboat
cruise and silent auction. The Town of Essex contributed all the site
preparation work
Sue, a native of
Rhode Island, graduated from Trinity College in Hartford, where she majored in
psychology and English.
“I never planned to
stay in Connecticut. I thought I’d go to Boston or New York,” she admits.
Instead, she not
only found a career in advertising in Connecticut, but she also found Essex and
bought a house when she was still single.
“I have always been
an ocean person and I wanted to get back to the water,” she says.
She also loves that
enduring symbol of the town, Essex Ed.
“That groundhog
parade is the best thing,” she says.
Sue met her husband
Ken, a software engineer, on a golfing date at Fenwick in Old Saybrook. She not
only remembers the date, she remembers her scorecard.
“I got my first
birdie of the season that day,” she says. Ken and Sue were married in the
chapel near the first hole at Fenwick.
The couple now has
two children, Roman, 11, and Francesca, 9. The children, she says, seem more
interested in waterways than fairways. Both are enthusiastic sailors.
“I call myself
Regatta Mom,” she says.
Sue says she doesn’t
have much time for golf anymore, but she still manages to run with friends
several times a week. She has completed a half marathon but admits now there is
another component to her running.
“We’re very social;
I know how to run and talk,” she says.
Sue works part-time
as marketing director of the Connecticut River Museum and also runs her own
company, Susan Daniels Design, which she says helps companies enhance their
branding and marketing. She has just competed an interior design degree from
the Rhode Island School of Design that she feels will give her added skills in
working with a company’s total image.
Essex Elementary
Principal Joanne Beekley is enthusiastic about the work Sue and her committee
did on the playground.
“Sue’s amazing. I
want her on my team whenever I have something to do,” she says.
Beekley adds the
playscape has received an enthusiastic reception.
“The students love
it; the families love it,” Beekley says. “It is such a great addition.”
Sue admits she
herself has tried out the new playscapes.
“I did go down the
slides; that was easy,” she says.
But there were
unexpected moments.
“The monkey bars,”
she says, “they were more challenging than I expected.”
Pictured: Susan Daniels
puts play in the day of Essex
Elementary School
students, leading a committee to build a new playground.
Photo by Rita
Christopher