Somerset playground equipment will get second life at Kansas City, Kan., elementary school

Crews have removed most of the playground equipment at Somerset, and will install it at Silver City Elementary in Kansas City, Kan.

The Somerset Elementary building will soon be gone, demolished to make way for a new assisted living facility. But some of the accoutrements of an active school won’t be going to waste.

Hunt Midwest, the building’s new owner, was looking for places to donate some of the school’s building materials and equipment, and Kale Boler, a friend and former neighbor of Prairie Village Mayor Ron Shaffer, knew that a school in the Kansas City, Kan. district was in need of a major playground update.

So Boler got in touch with Hunt Midwest and J.D. Rios, the principal of Silver City Elementary.

“They had some of the older playground equipment from around the 50s, but it wasn’t up to modern safety standards,” said Brenner Holland, a director at Hunt Midwest. “The Somserset equipment was pretty new, and meets all the current codes. I think they were just as excited to get all of the rubber mulch that goes around it and makes falls less scary.”

Crews dismantled the Somerset equipment in January and are expected to reassemble it at Silver City around Feb. 20.

Hunt Midwest also donated a significant amount of the Somerset building materials — ceiling tiles, fixtures, etc… — to Habitat for Humanity Restore in Independence, Mo.

“These opportunities don’t come along every day, so it’s great to be able to take advantage of them,” Holland said. “You get to keep all this material out of the dump, and it goes to the greater good.”

Holland said he expects demolition of the Somerset building to begin next week.