STANDISH – After more than three years of fundraising to build a playground on Johnson Field in Standish, community volunteers as well as the town’s recreation committee and playground committee members, finally put their shovels in the ground and spent the day erecting the new 50-by-80-foot playground on Route 35.

“It’s really nice to see it manifest and come to be,” said Julie Senter, a Standish resident and stay-at-home mom of three children ages, 4, 5 and 6, who helped with the initial fundraising.

“It’s going to be wonderful to come here,” said Kathy Moores, a Standish resident who normally brought her grandchildren to Westbrook to use a playground. Moores, who was at Johnson Field on Saturday, worked with her husband Larry to piece together a spiral slide.

“I am really excited,” she said. “This will be much closer.”

According to Standish Recreation Director Linda Brooks, the town received a $27,966 grant from the state Land and Water Conservation Fund to be used toward building a playground on the Johnson Field property.

On Saturday, Brooks said the committee was able to raise about $9,000 through spaghetti suppers, dances and other fundraisers. It also received $5,000 from the Narragansett Number One Foundation. The total estimated cost of the playground is $50,000.

The Johnson Field Playground Committee formed and began working on the project in 2010, after Senter approached the recreation committee and suggested building a playground on the property to provide a space for small children to play while older children played baseball on the adjacent field or use the nearby skateboarding park.

“Two or three years ago now, they built a playground at Mill Street Park in Steep Falls through a grant program,” Brooks said. “We didn’t have any playgrounds on town-owned properties. The only playgrounds in town, before that, were at schools. Parents of pre-school or home-schooled children really didn’t have a place to bring their children to during the school hours.”

With the playground nearly completed at Johnson Field, with the exception of mulch that still needs to be spread by volunteers, local parents will have a place close to home to bring their children to play and get exercise on the multi-purpose jungle gym, suitable for ages 2 through 12, Brooks said.

Though a date for a grand opening has not been set, she hopes to bring the community together to thank everyone who donated money and to make the project possible.

“This kind of project definitely shows what community is all about,” she said.

“We have a great group of volunteers coming together, which I think is the best part of this,” said Jen Dunfee, a member of the recreation committee and parent of a second-grader at Edna Libby Elementary School. “It’s been a valiant effort on the part of all the folks involved.”

“It will get plenty of use,” said Lindsy Brice, a mother of two small boys, ages 7 and 4, who volunteered during the community build on Saturday.

“One of them loves the skate park, but the other one is 4 years old and gets bored, so I am really excited about the playground,” she said.

Senter said she is excited to see the project come to fruition and to have a playground available to her only five minutes from home. It’s not only a recreational area for kids, but also a community meeting spot for other parents, Senter said.

“I am really hopeful to see other moms, kids and families enjoy it in the years to come,” she said.

Members of the recreation and playground committees build the jungle gym in one day.