Making school
a little more cool

By Jon Campisi
Times Staff Writer

When Michelle Borkovic recently visited her daughter’s old elementary school, she was dismayed by what she saw — namely, a small play yard with limited amenities.
How, she asked herself, could children be motivated to learn when their recess time offered virtually no outlet for recreation?
But instead of turning a blind eye, Borkovic decided to act.
On April 26, Borkovic and nearly 30 volunteers took to the school yard at Kennedy Crossan School in Burholme, sprucing up the outdoor space with fresh amenities.
The activity served as Borkovic’s senior project at Drexel University, where she’s preparing to graduate in June.
Borkovic said she chose as her project upgrading the 86-year-old elementary school’s play yard after having lived in Doylestown for three years and seeing all that suburban schools have in the way of outdoor spaces for children.
In the beginning, Borkovic was simply going to do research on area companies giving back to their communities, to see “how much of an impact they can have,” but that soon changed.
“I thought, to get the best statistics I’d do it myself,” said Borkovic, who has volunteered in the past but has never managed a community service project herself.
During the event, Borkovic’s family and friends, as well as a handful of younger volunteers — students who attend Kennedy Crossan as well as other schools — got down and dirty, painting hopscotch courts and an oversize map of the United States into the blacktop and installing basketball and soccer nets. Borkovic provided the helping hands with refreshments halfway through the project, which had been postponed twice due to inclement weather.
Borkovic said her desire to spruce up the school was compounded by the fact that the schools her two children attend now in the Central Bucks School District have so much more in the way of outdoor offerings than schools in the city, many of which have confined spaces and no grass.
“I see what they all have, and I see the environment that they’re in every day,” she said.
Borkovic, who grew up in Lawndale but moved to Burholme as an adult, also had a desire to inspire today’s youth, and she viewed the community service project as serving that purpose.
“I just thought it would be an excellent opportunity to give back to the students,” she said. “I wanted to show them that it doesn’t take much to change the way people think about their neighborhood, their environment.”
Since children spend so much of their time at school, it’s important to have a place where children will want to go — a place they can be proud to call their own, she said.
“School has become so much more to these kids than just a place to learn,” she said. “I wanted to give them a better outlook about school. I wanted them to think more positively about school. If they like coming here, and they have these games to play . . . I think they will have a different attitude about it (school).”
Bill Griffin, principal at Kennedy Crossan, said the upgrades to the school yard were much needed, and he’s thankful to Borkovic and the volunteers for caring enough to come out on a Saturday morning and make the changes.
“I’m so excited for the kids to see it Monday,” he said.
While the school yard is anything but huge, it does serve its purpose.
“The smallness of the school is what makes the school so special,” Griffin said, pointing out the pride current and former students share in the circa 1922 school building.
Borkovic said the idea behind having students themselves participate in the project was to give them ownership in their school and their community.
“They’re giving back,” she said. “They’re going to see what a great reaction and response they’re getting and they’re going to want to pay it forward.”
While she was growing up in the city, Borkovic continued, “the only thing I enjoyed was my friends, my family, the neighborhood. It was a good time, and I want to make sure these kids enjoy the same things.”
All of the supplies used during the project — everything from the sports netting to the paint — were donated by area businesses that Borkovic contacted at the start of her project. ••
Reporter Jon Campisi can be reached at 215-354-3038 or jcampisi@phillynews.com