GLENROI children will have a new place to play following an upgrade to an Oxley Place community centre recently.
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To coincide with a recent expansion of Marang Gunya (the good house), a $40,000 playground was opened there on Friday.
It will be used regularly by Grasshoppers Playgroup and any other children that want to use it during or outside of centre hours.
Parent Victoria Barden welcomed the new playground and said it would give young children somewhere to go.
“It will give them something to do and save them getting up to mischief,” Miss Barden said.
“Their little imaginations can take off, they get on this and they are on a pirate ship or anything.”
CareWest community engagement manager Lesa Dunn said the playground was erected in a matter of days but work on the centre started in November.
She said it would enable them to hold more community activities such as youth boxing and classes for adults.
“It’s doubled the capacity of the centre, which has got a great new kitchen so we can do cooking classes,” Ms Dunn said.
The next project will be upgrading the gardens and planting trees in honour of community elders who have died.
Ms Dunn said in future they also hoped to include outdoor exercise equipment around the playground.
Nationals member for Orange Andrew Gee opened the playground and said services at Marang Gunya would be improved by the expanded size.
“Before it was very small, it wasn’t a very functional centre because you couldn’t fit many people in it, particularly in winter,” Mr Gee said.
The new playground was funded by a NSW government community building partnership program grant while a collaboration between Housing NSW and CareWest have worked towards increasing the size of the centre.
