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Rachel D’Avino, a victim of the Newtown Connecticut shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School, will be forever memorialized in a playground dedicated to her on Asbury Park’s 7th Avenue beach [pictured above].

Fire Chief Kevin Keddy and Leesha Floyd, a program development aide for the city’s recreation department, formally presented details of the project to the City Council last Wednesday.

“We are all aware of the tragic events that happened on December 14 up in Newtown Connecticut at the Sandy Hook Elementary School,” Keddy said. “If anything good can come out of that, it’s The Sandy Ground project.”

The goal of The Sandy Ground project is to build 26 playgrounds in communities affected  by Hurricane Sandy across the coasts of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut to honor 26 lives lost in the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting on Dec. 14.  The group would like to have all of the playgrounds completed by the one year anniversary of the tragedy, according to The Sandy Ground website.

Five playgrounds have been completed so far. Two are in New Jersey and three in Connecticut. The two Jersey parks were constructed in Sea Bright and Union Beach, the website said.

The process began when the president of the New Jersey Fireman’s Mutual Benevolent Association (NJFMBA) reached out to the head of the president of the Asbury Park Firefighter’s Association to explain an anonymous donation had been made, Keddy said.

“The president of our firefighters association received a call about six weeks ago from the state FMBA, one of New Jersey’s parent firefigher’s unions. They received an anonymous donation of $100,000 to construct a playground with the stipulation that it had to be built here, in Asbury Park,” Keddy said at last week’s council meeting.

Keddy reached out to Floyd at the recreation department to research locations and take on the completion of the project as a joint effort, he said.

“I talked to Leesha and we looked at various sites around the city,” Keddy said.

“The original idea was to put the playground on the West side,” Floyd said at the council meeting. But in terms of playgrounds, the West side “was pretty good right now,” she said.

“We got a lot of calls from parents about the 7th Avenue beach, they want to see some type of playground there so we thought that was the ideal location for this playground,” Floyd said.

The design of the playground will be ready in about a month from now. Organizers of the project are currently in discussions with the victim’s family in regard to her favorite colors and other information, Keddy said.

Council members expressed concern that those who wished to play in the park would not have to pay for a beach badge.

“We are going to take steps to ensure that it is located in proximity to a gate and there will be fencing,” Keddy said. “This way, those that wish to play within the playground do not have to pay to get on the beach.”

During the public portion of the meeting, resident Duanne Small spoke out against naming a park after someone not from the city.

“It upset me that we are going to name a park after someone who lost their life in Connecticut,” he said. “But what about our kids right here? What about our babies that’s dying in the streets? What about us? That’s why we got a city that’s divided right now. Because we don’t care about one another…let’s name it after her [Newtown victim Rachel D’Avino] and some of the kids that lost their lives here.”

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