P.E.I. community raises nearly $250,000 for a new playground to honour late teacher
Pam's Playground built with memorial donations after Grade 2 teacher's death in 2022
A Prince Edward Island elementary school has built a new playground using over $250,000 raised in memory of a popular teacher.
Pam Kelly, who had taught Grade 2 at Englewood School in Crapaud since 2003, died in July 2022 after a battle with cancer. She was 48.
Her obituary read: "Family flowers only. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the Englewood School Playground Fund."
But it turned out no one at the small rural school knew anything at the time about a playground fund, says Rachael Cameron, the president of the Englewood Home and School Association.

They soon learned, though, that it had been the teacher's wish to have a playground built for students in grades 4 to 6. They had access to a swing set and a tennis and basketball court, as well as a GaGa Ball pit, but did not have a playground structure like the school's primary to Grade 3 students did.
"The home and school association saw this as an opportunity to put a playground in the ground in honour of Pam Kelly," Cameron said. "That was something Pam always wanted."
Fundraising from scratch
An initial Halloween-related fundraising event brought in $2,500. Within a year and a half, the home and school association had raised almost $250,000, said Krista Millar-Smith, the group's former treasurer who helped spearhead the project along with Cameron.

"We really felt that the amount of support we received for this project was indicative of Pam Kelly's legacy and the impact Englewood School has had on our community," Cameron said.
Millar-Smith echoed that sentiment.
"A lot of our donations that came in were from people [whose] kids may have had Pam as a teacher, so if they had a business they were able to donate through, they did," Millar-Smith said. "The donations just kept coming in."

Further fundraising was required due to rising construction and material costs. The association was also able to secure some government assistance to enable the accessible playground to be built.
The school recently staged an official opening of what's aptly named Pam's Playground that included her family and former students and colleagues.
"It was pretty special, you know. I didn't work with Pam like some of the other teachers did for quite some time and a lot of them were very emotional," Millar-Smith said.
With files from Island Morning