(Playground at EC Hughes, photographed last June)

A big boost for Friends of Roxhill Elementary‘s plan to improve the EC Hughes Elementary playground before Roxhill kids move in next school year, since the playground isn’t part of the school district’s modernization project … the city has awarded Friends oF Roxhill the $100,000 Neighborhood Matching Fund grant they were seeking for the project. That of course doesn’t cover the entire project – Jenny Rose Ryan from Friends of Roxhill tells WSB, “Our community match is almost $60K, and all of that is professional service and other donated time from our leadership team (all members of Friends of Roxhill Elementary). We will accept anything anyone wants to give or pledge in support of the project.” You’ll hear more soon about opportunities for community involvement – for example, she says, “we’re painting a mural as part of the project and would love help from E.C. Hughes neighbors to design and paint it, for example.” We first reported last June about the group’s playground-improvement push.

P.S. Friends of Roxhill does have a fundraiser tomorrow that you can help with – a tasty one, at that – they’ll benefit from a percentage of the proceeds all day at Zippy’s Giant Burgers in White Center (8 am-9 pm Thursday).