Have you heard the giggles from the monkey bars? The squeals of fun coming from the swing set? The laughter from the sliding boards?

Kids at Tryon Elementary School are making all kinds of happy noises on a new playground, thanks to the efforts of an active group of community volunteers, the Tryon Kiwanis Club and the Parent Teacher Organization of Tryon Elementary.

With a mission to serve the children of the world, the Tryon Kiwanis Club, with its former president Joe Picone, focused on the needs close to home and led a two-year fundraising effort to refurbish a playground that had long been in need of attention.

Thanks to funding assistance from the local Kiwanis Club, Polk County Community Foundation, the PTO and GameTime, more than $27,000 was raised to replace and rehabilitate an aging playground.

Numerous volunteers, including members of Tryon Kiwanis Club and Thermal Belt Habitat for Humanity as well as parents, teachers, Val Simoncic, Alan Snyder, George Alley, Stacy Evans and Principal Walker Williams, pitched in to construct the new playground on a very cold day last December. These volunteers dug holes, tightened screws, pieced together a fun new gym set and spread tons of mulch, donated by Hensons.

The new playground gets an A+ at Tryon Elementary School, where children are enjoying recess more than ever before.

A plaque unveiling and dedication ceremony for the new playground was held Thursday, Oct. 21. School children were there to share their enthusiasm.