08/05/2026
The Good Shepherd Board is excited to announce our plans for upgrading our playground and invite you to help us make our plans a reality.
Our plan is to develop a Good Shepherd Village within our playground area. This village will include a concrete roadway where students can ride tricycles and Little Tike cars to different locations within our village. Along the roadway there will be Little Tike homes that we will make into places they might find in an actual town like: a grocery store, the library, the pharmacy, the repair shop, homes for the villagers, and so much more.
We will be developing our Good Shepherd Village in three stages, as you can see in the attached image.
In Stage 1, we will be preparing the land for the village. This will include moving playground equipment, adding mulch to our “tree house” area, removing sand/stone boxes, and building our “sensory zone.” The sensory zone will be a new addition to the playground and it will have three different sensory panels for the students to interact with. There will be a music panel, a texture panel, and a movement panel.
Stage 1, preparing the land, will begin on Sunday, August 30 from 11 am to 1 pm with a Faith & Good Shepherd Families Work Day. On that day our goals will be to spread mulch, move playground equipment, and build the sensory zone. All GSP parents who come to this work day will receive their field trip fees covered for the year. Additionally we will have opportunities for students and siblings to help on this day (plan for them to get wet) and pizza and water will be supplied! Our rain day for the work day will be Monday, August 31 from 5-7 pm.
In Stage 2, we will pour the roadways for the village. The roadways will be similar to the “Farm to Market Course” at the Elkhart County 4H Fairgrounds, next to Old Mc Donalds Barn. We currently are looking into bids to have this work done (if you have a name of someone who does concrete work please let us know). Our hope is to have this roadway poured no later than spring 2027; yet we also know this process is weather dependent too. Additionally in this stage we hope to build a GSP Garage near the roadway where we can safely secure our tricycles and Little Tike cars for easy access and play.
In Stage 3, our final stage, we plan to expand our Good Shepherd Village establishments. Currently we have three Little Tike houses/play structures. In the expansion we plan to add double that number if not add more with time. Each of these establishments will receive signage and other details to make them into the establishments they are meant to be; think flower pots, picnic tables, little fences, etc. Our hope is for this stage to be finished in time for the beginning of the 2027-2028 school year.
The Good Shepherd Village will be funded by the money we earned at last spring's Penne Palooza & Basket Auction Fundraiser; as that was earmarked for these upgrades for the playground. Depending on the cost of pouring the roadways, we may need to seek additional funding and/or add a Stage 4 that includes road expansion and limit our first pouring of roadways to a smaller area.
The Good Shepherd Board is excited about these upgrades to our playground. If you have questions please don’t hesitate to ask either Pastor Jes, Ms Sara, or email the Good Shepherd Board at [email protected]. And please join us for the workday on August 30th!
