With less than one month left to reach its latest fundraising goal – required for a city matching grant – the playground-improvement project at West Seattle’s most populous elementary school is in a new phase: Lafayette Elementary has made it into the latest monthly Pepsi Refresh grant competition. In order to have a chance at one of this month’s $50,000 grants, they need a lot of votes between now and January 31st, and you can vote daily. There are two ways to vote: Online, by going here (which requires registration), or texting, which doesn’t: Text 105273 to Pepsi (73774).

For background on the project – here’s our story from November about the push to match the $100,000 city grant by the end of this month, or lose it. We checked in this morning with Deborah Hazlegrove, one of the project co-chairs, who says the fundraising total is getting close to the goal, but it’s still coming down to the January 31st wire. The project’s “Play It Forward” website has more information about other ways they’re raising money, including a current anonymous offer to match all cash up to $5,000 donated between now and January 15th.