Sooner or later, the kids are going back to school in addition to public parks reopening — and when this glorious day occurs, sanitized playground facilities will be waiting thanks to the generosity of a local business.
Johnson’s Xtreme Softwash recently launched a campaign to clean and sanitize playground equipment at schools, public parks, churches and day-care facilities.
Although many playgrounds are not being used now due to Gov. Roy Cooper’s stay-at-home directive and related closures, Gene Johnson of the Mount Airy-based business says this will change once conditions are eased.
“When this stay-at-home order is lifted, kids are going to flood these places,” he said of the need not only to reconnect them with recreational outlets, but ones that are clean and safe. “And these children will have somewhere to go.”
The effort by Johnson’s Xtreme Softwash, dubbed Project Playground, was hatched after certain outdoor facilities in Mount Airy were closed on March 22 due to the pandemic.
This included the playgrounds at Riverside and Westwood parks.
“The city had called about sanitizing the parks and I went and looked at them and they were extremely bad,” Johnson said. He was quick to point out that this did not involve any apparent contamination by COVID-19, but just the usual dirt and grime buildup from legions of little feet and hands along with problems such as mold.
This led to an idea by the business to expand its cleaning services to other such facilities in the area — in Surry and Stokes counties and Ararat and Cana in Virginia. It decided to do so free of charge, as a way of helping those communities in a difficult time.
“As of today, we’ve got 26 cleaned in Surry County and Stokes County,” Johnson said Wednesday of the business he operates with wife Dianne, which has six employees.
Those workers agreed to tackle the public playgrounds each day after their regular cleaning assignments are finished. And Johnson’s Xtreme Softwash is picking up the tab for their labor along with supplying the products needed to properly clean and sterilize the playground implements, including the removal of mold and mildew.
“We’re donating everything to do the job,” Dianne Johnson said.
Johnson’s Xtreme Softwash has been soliciting locations to be placed on the Project Playground list.
Along with the city parks, the effort has encompassed playgrounds at other locations such as Jones Intermediate School, the B.H. Tharrington Primary campus and Millennium Charter Academy in Mount Airy; White Plains Elementary School; and White Plains Christian School, among others. The common denominator is that every site is left sparkling clean by the four crews involved.
Gene Johnson said the timetable originally was set for the cleaning program to continue through this coming Monday, two days before the governor’s stay-at-home order was set to expire, though on Thursday afternoon the governor extended that to May 8.
Johnson said Project Playground will continue until two days before the order expires.
He said effects of the cleaning will last until playgrounds are reopened, adding that this will be one less thing for parents to be stressed about during an uncertain period.
Given that this is an age of skepticism when everyone seems to question such gestures made by businesses as self-serving, Johnson made a special point to address that issue.
He said the playground cleaning is in no way an attempt to promote or expand Johnson’s Xtreme Softwash, which celebrated its 10th year in business last September.
“This is something we’re doing for the children, and nothing else.”
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Source: https://www.mtairynews.com
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