Zumbro Ridge’s original playground, fall 2018. Photo credit: Tom Guettler.

Soon after joining the Zumbro Ridge Estates (ZRE) board of directors as Operations Manager in June 2018, Allie Lechner decided that building a new children’s playground would be key to keeping existing families and attracting new families to the community.

Zumbro Ridge’s new playground and basketball court, August 2020. Photo credit: Tom Guettler.

Getting started

Lechner did some research and early estimates indicated it would cost about $90,000 to build a basketball court and commercial-grade playground. “Yeah, that seemed like a huge amount of money,” Lechner said. “We hadn’t allocated any money for this project, so I decided to fundraise. I wrote 400 letters and started a GoFundMe page, but was able to raise only a couple thousand dollars.” After applying for several grants, she was finally awarded a $25,000 grant by the Hanson Family Foundation, with the condition that any money not spent on the project by June 2020 had to be returned.

Finding Funding

So, Lechner went to work. “Through the end of 2018 and into 2019,” she said, “I made speeches at local churches, civic organizations, city agencies, and to anyone that would listen. I bet I made several hundred calls and visits. The Rochester Bulletin ran an article about the project. TV station KIMT aired a segment. Money started coming in.”

She received a bid of $18,000 from Rochester Asphalt to build the basketball court, but talked them into donating $9,000. The remaining $9,000 came from the Hanson grant, leaving $16,000 for use on the playground. The court was built in July 2019, and Bear Creek Church donated the poles and hoops.

Donations and pledges for the playground continued to come in throughout 2019 and into 2020. “Just when the goal was in sight,” Lechner said, “COVID hit. Donors began canceling their pledges and the project was still short $23,000. I panicked. There was a deadline for ordering the playground equipment and the Foundation money had to be spent.”

“The board and ROC Capital agreed that we could use our reserves to fund the gap, with the condition that I receive member approval and continue to fundraise and replenish the funds from outside donations. I began by going door-to-door and I received member permission.”

Putting it all together

Fortunately, donations continued to come in and reserves were not used. Playground equipment was ordered. A local excavating company donated 80 truckloads of fill for the playground site. “We were grateful for the fill,” Allie said, “but then realized there were large rocks in the fill, and we had to spend several days picking rocks.”