There was a moment during Friday morning’s playground dedication at the Prendergast School where 8‑year-old Freddie Hubbard leaned forward in his metal folding chair, his eyes calmly scanning the grass in front of him.
While Prendergast principal Joe Apicella stood at a podium, addressing hundreds of kids and community members, Freddie looked left to right, up and down, until his gaze locked onto a tiny butterfly with orange wings about five feet in front of him (see photo above).
The insect fluttered unsteadily on the grass, then took flight. Freddie sat back.
Freddie’s little sister loved butterflies. She told their mom their wings carried secrets into the sky.
Freddie’s little sister, Catherine, was one of 20 children killed during the Dec. 14 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
She was just six years old.
The butterfly Freddie noticed had just been released in honor of little red-haired Catherine and the people who lost their lives at Sandy Hook.
Article continues after the photo gallery.
The students at Ansonia’s Prendergast School have a gorgeous new playground thanks to Freddie and his mom, Jennifer, and something called the “Sandy Ground Project,” an initiative of a New Jersey firefighters’ union (the New Jersey State Firefighters’ Mutual Benevolent Association).
The firefighters are raising money and donating their labor to build 26 playgrounds in the tri-state area to honor the lives lost at Sandy Hook.
Prendergast, a kindergarten through sixth grade school, was chosen thanks to the persistence of Apicella, the school’s principal.
The school’s previous playground was a single play set, the kind you might see in a family’s back yard — not much play for a school of 700 kids.
Firefighters from New Jersey and Ansonia teamed to build the playground over the last few weeks.
It was a community-wide effort and included donations from contractors, parents, and the Port Authority Police of New York and New Jersey in the “pay it forward” spirit, an oft-repeated phrase during Friday’s ribbon-cutting.
Some highlights Friday morning:
A plane flew overhead, towing a message: “To Prendergast School … From Catherine With Love.”
Ansonia Alderman President Gene Sharkey said Ansonia volunteer firefighters will be joining the effort to build more “Sandy Ground” playgrounds in Connecticut.
Mayor James Della Volpe gave Freddie a key to the city.
The school’s PTO gave a donation to the “Sandy Ground Project,” as did the school itself.
In addition to the playground, the project includes a simple garden, decorated with pink and purple plantings and cut-out butterflies with the names of the Sandy Hook kids.
In the middle, a flowering plum tree. It leaves are red and will turn pink in the early spring.
Jennifer Hubbard, Catherine and Freddie’s mom, delivered a simple message.
Smile.
Be kind.
“Catherine and the other 20 kids went to a school where they were reminded that all you have to do is be kind. Their principal used to say ‘Be kind.’ That’s all you really have to do. So as you play on your new playground, remember to be kind.”
“If there’s something in your heart you want to say to someone, say it. Because you don’t know what tomorrow is going to bring,” she said.
Click the play button to hear her complete remarks.
She also told the kids — people are good.
Then Freddie and his mom showed their goodness in action. When the ribbon was cut and the hundreds of kids got their first crack at the new playground, the Hubbards stood at the bottom of a double slide, handing out boxes of animal crackers to each kid as they came down the slide.
The following poem was placed on a plaque dedicating the Catherine Violet Hubbard Memorial Playground at the Prendergast School in Ansonia.
The Butterfly
By David Switzer
I sit and watch as people come here to play
They laugh and talk, some come here every day
One runs close by me and I flutter off
I land on your shoulder and you look down at me
The sun beaming across your face
I spread my wings and take flight
You look up at me now
No longer on your shoulder
The wind now takes me up in the sky
I look down, a tear in your eye
Don’t cry for me, “rejoice” I say
For now I am where angels play
Among the groups who helped make the new playground a reality:
- New Jersey Firefighters Mutual Benevolent Association
- Port Authority Police Benevolent Association
- Mayor Della Volpe and the Mayor’s Office
- Superintendent Merlone and the Ansonia Board of Education,
- Ansonia Board of Aldermen and President Gene Sharkey
- Ansonia Public Works
- Ansonia Fire Department
- Ansonia Police Department
- Bobby Evans and the Board of Education Maintenance Department
- Jim Petzold of CT Digital Graphics in Seymour
- Prendergast Staff, students and parents
