PORT ANGELES — Jennifer Holcomb kept hearing the generous admonition, “keep the change.”
That’s what people were telling her and other volunteers Friday at Windermere Real Estate-Port Angeles’ rummage sale fundraiser for Shane Park playground equipment, Holcomb said Monday.
The event raised $1,164 in six busy hours at the Papa Murphy’s Pizza building on Front Street, bringing the total contributions raised for equipment to $20,094.
“People were giving us money and saying, ‘Keep the change,’” said Holcomb, a Windermere broker. “I kept hearing that all day long.”
Shane Park Playground Committee President Janet Young was there, too.
“I was amazed,” she said of the rummage sale. “There were people crowded in there.”
The park was named after Young’s son, Shane Fowler.
He died at age 9 in 1973 when the west Port Angeles park, which Young still lives across from, was under construction.
The giant park has just one tiny slide.
The city of Port Angeles has budgeted $60,000 for the estimated $130,000 upgrade and will be applying for a $60,000 to $80,000 Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office grant later this summer, city Parks Superintendent Corey Delikat said Monday.
“They really like the fact that this is a community-based project,” he said.
The rummage sale was preceded by four weekend-breakfast fundraisers, and the playground committee is setting up a concession stand at an upcoming Shane Park baseball tournament and a donation table at the Clallam County Fair on Aug. 18-21, Young said.
The events rekindle memories of her son that leave her happy, she said.
Holcomb, a neighbor of Shane’s, recently told her one such story.
Holcomb was at Shane’s house for a Halloween party, and the children were bobbing for apples floating in a large tub.
Shane almost fell in.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladaily
news.com.
