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Asbury Park’s 7th Avenue beach is now the site of a Sandy Ground Project playground.

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.

A $100,000 donation from the Jules L. Plangere, Jr. Family Foundation – a Florida-based non-profit corporation founded by the original owners of the Asbury Park Press newspaper– funded the Asbury site project. The New Jersey state Fireman’s Mutual Benevolent Association [NJ FMBA] is the project’s coordinating organization.

William Lavin, president of the NJ FMBA, is the founder of the Sandy Ground Project: Where Angel’s Play. His idea to build 26 playgrounds was born through a series of events that stem back to the collapse of the two World Trade Center Towers on Sept. 11, 2001, according to his wife, Kathy Lavin.

After the events of 9/11, the NJ FMBA received a letter from a school children in Mississippi that expressed concern and appreciation for the 9/11 rescue workers. When Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005, William Lavin remembered the letter and the children in Mississippi. He reached out to find the school had not survived the storm, and decided he wanted to help them in some way, she said.

“After Katrina hit the kids had no place to play,” Kathy Lavin said. “They said come build us a playground.”

Lavin and the NJ FMBA in conjunction with Save the Children – a philanthropic organization dedicated to help children in poverty – built three playgrounds in Mississippi.

When Hurricane Sandy hit, the children at the same school in Mississippi paid the favor back. They held a toy drive and sent their collections to the NJ FMBA for distribution to the young victims of Sandy. After the events in Newtown, Conn. on Dec. 14, William Lavin decided to pay the kindness forward.

“I told him he was crazy when he told me he wanted to build 26 playgrounds,” she said. “I know what he went through to build those three in Mississippi.”

The playground on the 7th Avenue beach in Asbury is the sixth to be built by the Sandy Ground Project. Five other playgrounds, two in New Jersey and three in Connecticut, are finished. Ground-breaking for the seventh playground in Manasquan is set for Thursday. New York will see its first playground in Island Park within the next few weeks.

The new Asbury beach playground is 90 percent complete. “It will be finished on Tuesday after the swings are installed,” Lavin said.

Giordano Contracting, out of Kenilworth, builds the playgrounds. Their employees help train and instruct the volunteers, many of them firefighters, who assist in the assembly of the structures. Toni Giordano, owner of the construction company, first met William Lavin in 2006 when they built the playgrounds in Mississippi together, according to the Sandy Ground website.

The 7th Avenue playground features three purple towers, several slides, tunnels, a climbing wall and ladders for climbing access in to the tower areas. The towers are connected by handicap accessible ramps.

It honors Rachel D’Avino, a paraprofessional slain at Sandy Hook Elementary. The overall design of the individual playgrounds incorporates the likes and interests of the victims they honor. Rachel’s playground is purple and reflects elements of her love for dragonflies along with her passion for working with autistic children.

John Jasiulevicius [photo at right], D’Avino’s cousin, drove down to help volunteer to build the park.

“She was a girl who gave to everybody. She was all about kids, mostly with special needs,” he said.

While D’Avino spent her days working with special needs children at Sandy Hook Elementary, Jasiulevicius says her work did not stop at the end of the school day.

“You’d find her at their houses, working with them and their families” he said.

Jasiulevicius believes the gift of a playground in D’Avino’s name is an apt tribute to someone who was so passionate about working with children.

“If [the playground] was open right now, half of that crowd would be on it,” he said, pointing to the Sunday multitude of children and adults who came to enjoy a day at the beach.

Carlos Soto, father of slain teacher Victoria Soto, also came to help build Rachel’s playground. His daughter helped save the lives of 17 children at Sandy Hook Elementary, he said. Victoria’s playground in Stratford, CT, is pink and green and reflects her love of flamingoes and Christmas.

After all of the playgrounds that honor the victims are built, a plan to build one last playground – which would make 27 playgrounds in total – in Newtown itself, will honor the emergency workers and first responders to Sandy Hook Elementary the day the shootings took place.

“They really went through a lot,” said Kathy Lavin.

A ribbon cutting ceremony for the completed 7th Avenue beach playground is tentatively scheduled for Aug. 24.

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Photo at top: Construction workers and volunteers work to assemble the playground on Saturday.

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