P.E.I. community raises nearly $250,000 for a new playground to honour late teacher

A Prince Edward Island elementary school has built a new playground using over $250,000 raised in memory of a popular teacher.

Pam's Playground built with memorial donations after Grade 2 teacher's death in 2022

Ryan McKellop · CBC News · Posted: Jul 01, 2025 5:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: July 1

A P.E.I. teacher's dying wish to have a playground built at Englewood School has come true

26 days ago

2:02

The community of Crapaud, P.E.I., came together to raise funds in honour of Pam Kelly. After the teacher at Englewood School passed away from cancer, her obituary asked people to give not flowers but memorial contributions to the Englewood School Playground Fund. Trouble was, there was no such fund. That changed quickly, and now children like Annabelle Cameron are using the new equipment.

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.

A woman in a blue shirt stands in front of a playground with four kids playing on it. — Rachael Cameron, president of the Englewood Home and School Association, says she and the rest of the executive didn't know about Pam Kelly's wish to raise money for a playground until they saw it in her obituary. (Aaron Adetuyi/CBC)

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.

A woman in a black shirt with a leaf print stands in front of a playground with a CBC News microphone at the bottom centre left of the screen. — Krista Millar-Smith, former treasurer for the Englewood Home and School Association, says the official opening of Pam's Playground was a 'pretty special' event. (Aaron Adetuyi/CBC)

"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."

A play structure, made up of blue and light blue colours can be seen on the screen, two slides can be seen on the right as well as monkey bars to the left. — This is the play structure that was built in honour of Pam Kelly, a Grade 2 teacher who died of cancer in 2022. (Aaron Adetuyi/CBC)

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.