MARINE CORPS BASE HAWAII -- U.S. Marines with Combat Logistics Battalion 3 helped rebuild a local community playground at Kamuela, on the island of Hawaii, Oct. 28, 2017.
Military personnel from the Pohakuloa Training Area have been volunteering to demolish and rebuild the Anuenue, or Rainbow, Kamuela community playground.
“This is a civil engineering project to give back to the community here in Waimea,” said Staff Sgt. Dennis Taylor II, a heavy equipment operator with CLB-3, and a native of Colorado Springs, Colo. “There’s a lot of history here with the military interacting with this community since it’s the closest to the Pohakuloa Training Area, so we just want to make sure that we’re here to support them.
Taylor said the original playground had a presence of military personnel from PTA as well.
“This playground was originally constructed with the help of Marines and Soldiers,” Taylor said. “When we heard they were going to take it down we wanted to make sure that we were here to help volunteer and rebuild.”
Lance Cpl. John Lewis, an engineer equipment mechanic with CLB-3, and a native of Houston, said he’s proud to help out the Kamuela community.
“It feels nice and very rewarding to give back to the community,” Lewis said. “It’s great to come work with the Kamuela residents, and give a helping hand to build this playground.”
Lewis said this wasn’t his first time doing a community service project.
“Earlier this year I was in Korea for five months,” Lewis said. “We helped the community out by building a school for them.”
Vicki Missien, a communications coordinator for the construction project, and a native of Honolulu, said the original playground was built 25 years ago.
“In 1992 a group came together to create a volunteer building project,” Missien said. “There wasn’t government funding to build a playground, but there are companies who help communities organize a construction project like this.”
Missien said the original playground was due for a renovation.
“It used to be a solid wood playground and over 25 years later it began to rot and degrade,” Missien said. “We heard the playground was going to be torn down due to safety reasons, so we spoke with the county to form an official group with the goal of doing another community building project.”
Missien said without the support of the military the project wouldn’t have been done in time.
“I don’t know how we would’ve been able take down the original playground without their support,” Missien said. “I couldn’t have asked for a better time for them to come out and help with this community service project.”
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