Saturday was not a typical day at Peacock Family Center. Instead of babies, toddlers, and preschoolers, several dozen muscular sailors from the USS Nimitz filled the play yard, the nursery, the classrooms, and the hallways. But the sailors weren’t there to play; they were there to work, and work they did.
Peacock Executive Director Sarah Townsend had expected a few volunteers to show up to help finish planting the toddler play yard, but so many turned up that Townsend and her staff were able to enlist the crew’s help in washing walls, cleaning and organizing the kitchen, doing paint touchups, moving furniture, organizing the art closet, scraping tape off the windows, weeding the yard and perimeter, power washing the parking lot, and removing old graffiti. A Navy dad and his two sons built an outdoor art table using two tree stumps. Three other sailors built an outdoor art storage unit. And at the end of the day, volunteers took 15 bags of yard waste to the dump.
Navy dad and his two sons and the art table they built.
Shaina, Logistics Specialist Seaman 2nd Class (SW), told me that the Volunteer Opps division of the crew regularly shows up for projects on Bainbridge, in Poulsbo, and in Silverdale. Any projects that get enough crew members to sign up get the go-ahead. Habitat for Humanity and the Humane Society are regular beneficiaries. Helen Shapley, who is Peacock’s Community Outreach Coordinator, had contacted the USS Nimitz and completed an application for volunteer help. Way more volunteers than expected signed on to the project.
When she saw how many people she had to manage, Kim Burke, Peacock’s Child Care Director, put her classroom management skills to work and quickly devised a system for keeping the volunteers busy. She taped red signs with brief directives all over the yard and building so that volunteers could choose a task and do it without further delay.
Organizers from the USS Nimitz.
The now-finished toddler play area includes a deck and a textural garden that toddlers will be able to walk on. Materials were paid for by a combination of the Child Care Facility fund of the Department of Commerce and a generous parent donation.
The sailors were at Peacock from, in their words, “9:00 to 15:00,” a good solid day of work. I asked Shaina, who hails from Georgia, why they want to spend their down time (while the ship is in the area for maintenance) working so hard. She said the work “gets our minds off things” and makes the crew feel really good to know they are doing something worthwhile for the community. “Plus,” she added with a laugh, “there’s not much going on around here in Washington.” Shaina! Subscribe to Inside Bainbridge to see how much is happening on the Island and then come back to play!
Fixing the play yard bell.
Weeding the perimeter.
Working on the Toddler Play Yard.
One of Kim Burke's red tags.
