Sandy Ground Project Plans Hartford Playground

This March, Hartford will become the eighth Connecticut location to welcome a playground commemorating one of the victims of the December 2012 shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown.

New Jersey-based The Sandy Ground Project: Where Angels Play posted the announcement on their Facebook page, along with an invitation for volunteers to help build the playground on the East Lawn of Elizabeth Park. The event will take place on March 16th.

The Sandy Ground Project was founded in the wake of the Newtown shootings and the devastation of Hurricane Sandy the month before. The idea was inspired by three playgrounds the New Jersey State Firefighters Mutual Benevolent Association, the organization behind the project, had built in Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina. The New Jersey firefighters plan to build 26 playgrounds across the tri-state area, each one dedicated to the memory of a Sandy Hook student or educator lost on that day over one year ago.

In addition to locations in New York and New Jersey, playgrounds have been completed in the Connecticut cities and towns of Bridgeport, New London, Norwalk, Fairfield, Stratford, Westport, and Ansonia. There are also plans for playgrounds in Milford and Mystic.

Hartford's playground will commemorate Ana Grace Marquez-Greene, who was 6 when she was killed. The official opening of the playground on the evening of April 4th will double as a birthday celebration for Ana Grace.

For more on The Sandy Ground Project, visit thesandygroundproject.org.