Douglases Award Playground Grants

Susan Balmanno, the principal at Point Fermin Elementary School in San Pedro, never imagined she would meet Kirk Douglas.

On Tuesday, she not only met the famed actor--she came away with a $25,000 check to turn an asphalt space in front of her campus into a playground.

Point Fermin was one of 31 schools receiving a total of $655,000 in grants Tuesday from the Anne and Kirk Douglas Playground Enhancement Awards.

The announcement was made at Vine Elementary School in Hollywood, where the Douglases, along with Mayor Richard Riordan and Mike Roos, president of Los Angeles Educational Alliance for Restructuring Now, awarded the grants to representatives of each school.

The grants will be used to pay for the landscaping of playgrounds and the purchase of recreation equipment. The Douglases have contributed $1 million in private funds to the $2.5-million fund, which has also received a $50,000 donation from the Riordan Foundation.

The grants require that schools raise a matching amount.

The awards are the largest playground donations ever given to the district and supplement two other initiatives: Proposition K, a city park bond measure, and Proposition BB, a $2.4-billion bond issue for school repair and construction.

“It’s so important that if children work hard, they play hard too,” said Anne Douglas. The soft-spoken woman was a contrast to her husband, who moved through the crowd shaking hands and posing for pictures with the more than 40 guests on the asphalt court of Vine Elementary.

To one person who mistakenly called the award the “Kirk and Anne Douglas award,” Kirk Douglas took exception: “It’s my wife who is the general of this operation,” he said.

Anne Douglas said she came up with the idea of giving money to school playgrounds when she read of their poor conditions in a Times article.

“If there are children learning, then we owe them recreational facilities to keep them stimulated and eager to be educated,” she said.