TACOMA — Friday in Tacoma was a day to play in peace. It was a day to celebrate swings, spray parks and the resilience, intelligence and courage of children.
It was a day for speeches in parks, marching through the streets and celebrating the completion of the Zina Linnik Project.
That it was sunnier and lovelier than it has been in ages was a grace note.
Hundreds of schoolchildren, and just about every bigwig in Tacoma, gathered in Wright Park at noon for the dedication of the new spray park and playground across the Hilltop from where Zina lived.
Zina was riding her bike in the alley behind her family’s home July 4, 2007, when she was kidnapped and later killed. She was 12.
After her disappearance, neighborhood children and friends from McCarver Elementary and Jason Lee Middle schools marched from McCarver to a candlelight vigil at her home.
On Friday, school counselor Carol Ramm-Gramenz recalled that night, and the fear and disbelief that marked the grieving crowd.
Mrs. RG, as the students call her, was among community leaders who realized the children had to work past that if they were to heal.
Zina’s friends began by recalling things she loved: reading, tetherball, her Ukrainian heritage, visiting the beluga whales at Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium. They decided to incorporate all those into a park in her memory.
The Greater Metro Parks Foundation, led by Drew Ebersole, realized this wouldn’t be a normal park re-do. McCarver students would need an extraordinary voice in the planning. Students from the University of Washington Tacoma and University of Puget Sound worked with the McCarver students to shape their idea of what Zina would have liked.
They submitted a plan with a sunken reading area, lots of swings and tetherballs, one garden for the school, another for the community, giant mosaic Ukrainian eggs, and fish sticks — sea creatures on poles.
For Wright Park, they wanted a fabulous water feature and accessible playground.
It all would cost $3.5 million.
When directors saw it, they got sticker shock, said Metro Parks public information officer Nancy Johnson. They had $326,000 available from a 2005 Park Improvement Bond. Students sold T-shirts and lobbied politicians and foundations. Metro Parks Foundation campaigned for donations. The total earned is a little more than $300,000 — enough for a celebration.
“Kids, this is about you,” parks foundation president Jeff Quint told McCarver, Stanley, Bryant and Jason Lee students gathered at Wright Park.
“You have transformed our perception of you as recipients into participants, and, more importantly, into leaders of this amazing campaign.”
Students sang and recited poems they’d written, politicians spoke, and through it all, kids played on the new equipment.
At the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 countdown, the spray ground spurted to life, and kids dashed in.
At 1 p.m., led by the Jason Lee Drumline, they set off toward Martin Luther King Jr. Way, led by members of the McCarver Peacemakers.
They chanted “Play in Peace!” and enchanted bystanders who came out to watch and wave.
They carried banners for partners and sponsors, including the YWCA Domestic Violence Shelter.
“A little boy came up to me and said, `I used to live there,”‘ said YWCA executive director Miriam Barnett.
The spray park at Wright Park will be a treat for the children who live there now, Barnett said.
“We’re going to need bathing suits and sunscreen,” she said.
Kids walked with Tacoma police officers who, like Kenny Neely, a Hilltop resident for 22 years, see welcome changes.
“It’s a safer environment for our kids,” Neely said.
The nearly four years of work since Zina was killed have made a difference, said Margaret Ellis, who lives across the street from and works at McCarver.
“The kids are respecting it,” she said. “They’re closer together, more focused.”
They gathered in Zina’s park, where Javion Martin, 10, stuck with Tacoma Police Lt. Rob Jepson, whom he’d met at Wright Park. He thanked Jepson for helping to keep his neighborhood safe, and for fishing the wand out of his bubble jar, one of hundreds given out.
“Peace is not just a dream,” McCarver student Kehinde Wuroala read from the Play in Peace Day proclamation. “We are the peacemakers.”
There were more poems, more speeches, more songs, and, at the end, bubbles.
“It’s a special park,” said Sam Hosier, 8, of Stanley. “People wanted to build it for freedom, and for everybody to have fun.”
His classmate, Elijah Whitehead, 8, added, “They wanted to build it to honor Zina.”
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Information from: The News Tribune, http://www.thenewstribune.com
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