After several years of planning, coordinating and fundraising, a new playground for Raymond Elementary School looks like it’s coming to fruition, and if all goes as planned, kids could be enjoying the improved facility as early as next July.

Alissa Messer, parent of two children at the elementary school, presented an update on the project to the Raymond Board of Selectmen at its regular meeting Tuesday, Oct. 12.

Messer, a volunteer, has worked with school administrators, staff, board members and parents to come up with plans for a new facility that would expand the playground from an 8,000 square-foot jungle-gym and swing-set to a more expansive play area with additional options for recreation.

The existing playground for the 225 students in kindergarten through fourth grade does not have any free space for the kids to play during recess, said Bill Hansen, facilities director at Regional School Unit 14. The only open space is on a slope, he said, making it difficult to play kickball or tag. A major part of the project is to create a more open, level space for kids to run.

“A lot of people worked really hard on this project,” Hansen said Wednesday. “The plan is a really solid one.”

The engineering work and designs for the playground are complete, said Messer, who enlisted the help of elementary school students in the design process.

“The students have been actively involved, (because) they need to have some ownership” over the playground, Messer said at the meeting. They’ve worked to create a video “infomercial” about the project to help with a local fundraising effort, she said.

With the new playground, the size of the jungle-gym and swing-set area will roughly double, to 14,000 square feet. The new playground would also include two paved areas – one with basketball hoops and another for hopscotch and other games.

The designs also include an unmarked field, which would be roughly two-thirds the size of a standard soccer field. The open field was something requested by many students, Messer said, and will be open for recess and after school and for physical education classes. Fill would be brought in to create a more level field, she said.

Additional safety measures, including a fence around the entire perimeter (the current playground is only partially fenced in) and street-style lighting, also are part of the design.

The school has already received the necessary permits from the Department of Environmental Protection and is in the process of submitting plans for the project to the Raymond Planning Board, Hansen said.

Some of the work to clear the way for the new playground has already started, Messer said. In August, trees were cut to open the space for the proposed field.

The new playground will “be transformational for the site,” Hansen said. “It will make it so when kids go out and have recess they can run, have fun and still be safe.”

The next step is to secure funding. Messer and Hansen have been in talks with the Maine National Guard about having the military spend two weeks in town building the playground. The Guard provides free labor for community-oriented projects through the Innovative Readiness and Training Program. In return, such projects serve as training for its missions.

Two years ago, Messer inquired about a similar program through the Pentagon, but was told told the playground project was too small. Both she and Hansen are optimistic about their chances for having the work done under Guard’s program.

Hansen said the total estimated cost of the project is $600,000, although costs could be significantly cut with military support. Hansen said he expects confirmation from the military regarding the project by December.

Messer said the Guard would likely come for two weeks in June 2017.

In the meantime, Messer and the parent-teacher organization are continuing to fund this and other projects through two major initiatives.

One is through a Hannaford gift card program, in which the group buys the cards in bulk and makes money selling them.

In conjunction with the Good Life Market, the school group is also selling pies for Thanksgiving.

To purchase a gift card or pie, call Raymond Elementary School at 655-8672 or email Messer at alissamesser@gmail.com.

Messer said it’s “exciting to work on a project with so much help, it shows you big things can be done,” she said. “And the kids are extremely excited about it.”

While Messer understands the excitement, she asked at the meeting that the public not come to check out the project’s progress during school days.

“It creates a little tension” if a stranger walks onto the school grounds, she said.

Alissa Messer presents plans for an improved Raymond Elementary School playground to the Raymond Board of Selectman Tuesday, Oct. 11. Messer said the project will provide kids with more space to run and safer facilities.