A young girl in Guelph, Ont., received a special surprise — a backyard playground built by a team of secret volunteers.
Adele, 3, is in the process of being adopted by her grandparents.
“We officially got custody of Adele at the end of March,” said Dave Latreille, Adele’s grandfather. “Mom and dad struggled with some addiction issues and really, staying with my wife and I was probably the best solution for Adele.”
Latreille said he knew their lives would completely change after adopting their three-year-old granddaughter. Wanting to help mark the beginning of her new life, Trevor Zahara, a 1984 graduate of Wilfrid Laurier University, decided to step in.
“We wanted to come together and support this very powerful move that they’re doing,” Zahara said.
Zahara, who buys, sells and installs playgrounds, learned that one of his clients had a spare set. Recognizing that Adele didn’t have a playground of her own, he made plans to deliver and install it himself — travelling all the way from Edmonton to Guelph.
“It’s going to be a teary moment, for me anyway, when Adele plays on it,” an emotional Zahara said.
But Zahara didn’t come alone.
“Dave and Lana thought there was two of us showing up,” he said. “I put the email out to the group email thread and said, ‘hey boys, I’ve got a playground at a business in Toronto that’s meant for a backyard and we’d like to go put it in and Dave’s backyard.’ 30 seconds late, I had 12 responses saying, ‘I’m in, I’m in, I’m in.’”
He recruited about a dozen friends, many of them University of Laurier alumni, to secretly volunteer their time and labour. Together, they planned to complete the entire playground build in just one day.
“I couldn’t believe it, you know, there’s like 12 of us now and it’s a little overwhelming,” Latreille said. “But she wasn’t shy around the guys when they came. She hasn’t met them before and so she was giving them hugs and high fives and was really excited.”
Six hours, hundreds of nails and 24 callused hands later, the playground was completed — all for little Adele to enjoy.
“She’s an outdoor kid,” Latreille said. “She loves to be outside all the time. We can just hang out at our place and she can have a few little friends over and we can hang out here.”
For the Latreille family, it’s not just a playground. It’s a brand-new chapter built on community and good will — one bolt at a time.
