Ocean City's playground will be named for Benjamin Wheeler, a 6-year-old killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings in 2012.
Bill Lavin and the New Jersey Firefighters Mutual Benevolent Association started Sandy Ground and partnered with businesses, volunteer and non-profit organizations to help fund and construct a playground in memory of each Sandy Hook victim.
Ocean City’s will be the 22nd of 26 planned playgrounds and will be named for Benjamin Wheeler, a 6-year-old first-grader killed at Sandy Hook Elementary.
The Wheeler family will be in town for the groundbreaking, and another son, Nate, will be honorary foreman of the job, according to John Murphy, president of FMBA Local 27.
The entire cost of the project (including an estimated $70,000 to $75,000 of material) is a paid for by the Sandy Ground Foundation. The work will be completed by volunteers with the help of construction companies.
Sandy damaged the 29th Street firehouse, adjacent to the playground site, and the city faces as much as $750,000 in repairs to fix the existing building and add a new elevated living quarters next door. But the project is not expected to cut into the playground area.
For information on how to help or donate, see a Where the Angels Play flyer.
Event organizers are looking for support from local merchants in the form of food donations to help feed volunteers on the project days.
Donation needs include:
- Coffee/Donuts/light breakfast for ground breaking
- Food donation for lunch for 100 volunteers
- Paper Products/trash and refrigeration
- Food donations for core group of Angels Army (approx 20 people) for each day
For further information or to donate to the Ocean City project, please call Laurie Howey Taylor at 609-525-9285 or email: [email protected].
