Enterprise students celebrate SpongeBob-themed playground
The green slime hadn't even finished dripping from Principal Virginia Abernathy's face Thursday morning before dozens of Enterprise Elementary students started climbing, sliding and spinning on the school's new playground.
“It's so awesome,” said Maddie Hearn of DeBary with a huge smile and big thumbs-up.
Maddie was a fifth-grader at Enterprise last year when she won the grand prize in a drawing sponsored by Nickelodeon, the children's cable network. Her winnings included a new playground for her school, a family trip to Los Angeles in March to attend the annual Kids' Choice Awards ceremony and a two-night family stay at the Nickelodeon Hotel in Orlando.
Eleven-year-old Maddie, now a sixth-grader at River Springs Middle School in Orange City, got to cut the ribbon on the new playground Thursday when Nickelodeon sponsored a schoolwide celebration to mark its opening.
A sea of 600 Enterprise students, all wearing bright yellow T-shirts plugging Nickelodeon's upcoming Worldwide Day of Play, filled a grassy area next to the playground for a show that featured music, speeches and the popular cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants, who danced with Maddie and her sisters.
It all led up to the dumping of green slime — a trademark Nickelodeon stunt — on Enterprise fifth-grader Austin Cieslak and the principal. Austin won the “honor” of being slimed for being the top salesman in a coupon book school-fundraising project.
“It's slimy,” he announced after green goo dropped on his head and down his torso.
“Does it taste good, at least?” asked Jason Everhart, a Nickelodeon disc jockey who performs under the name J. Boogie.
“No,” Austin answered before Abernathy took her place on the sliming bench, much to the delight of her students.
The playground features iconic places from the Nickelodeon town of Bikini Bottom, where SpongeBob lives in a pineapple house with his pet snail.
Landscape Structures Inc., a leading commercial playground manufacturer, designed and built the playground. A Nickelodeon spokeswoman estimated its value at $100,000.
The playground came with a reminder from Everhart to the students that “Nickelodeon wants you to know how important it is get out and play. ... Playing is not only fun, but it's healthy, too.”
The fun part was foremost on the mind of Enterprise fifth-grader Jonathan Roman. The new playground, he said, is “very cool. There's a lot more stuff on this playground than our old one. I like the SpongeBob house.”
Crews videotaped the Enterprise celebration, short excerpts of which are expected to be shown on Nickelodeon as coverage of events related to the 10th annual Worldwide Day of Play, which is Sept. 21.