Play By Play, From Woodbury To Poland

The old playground equipment at is making a world of difference for one city across the globe.

Woodbury last summer donated old swings, slides, tubes and teeter-totters to Kids Around the World, which in turn helped install the equipment at a public square in Glogow, Poland.

City officials on Wednesday welcomed Zbigniew Wierzchowski, a pastor in Glogow, and Paul Bierhaus, a Kids Around the World board member.

Wierzchowski presented Woodbury Mayor Mary Giuliani Stephens with a thank-you letter from her counterpart in Glogow, where the impact of the playground equipment has been immeasurable, the pastor said.

“You don’t know how wonderful a project it is,” Wierzchowski said, adding that people often stop him on the street to thank him for the new playground.

Student groups from across Glogow come to play on the same equipment Woodbury kids did just a few years ago, he said.

In addition to providing kids with a place to play, the project also brought together civic leaders and the police—who are often viewed as controllers rather than protectors in the former communist country—to help build the structure, Bierhaus said.

He and Wierzchowski displayed a photo slideshow to Woodbury administrators, the mayor and parks officials at on Wednesday.

“Watching the slideshow made me realize that you made relationships in your community that will be lasting,” Stephens said.

Kids Around the World has reconstructed 200 playgrounds in 40 nations over its 15 years of existence. The group takes equipment that typically doesn’t pass U.S. standards and donates it to places that are experiencing some sort of hardship.

The city also to Kids Around the World earlier this year. That equipment will likely be donated to an orphanage in Haiti, Bierhaus said.

The mayor was also given a photo of children playing on the equipment and a CD of Christmas music from Wierzchowski (he’s a saxophonist).