The children who attend the day care center at the First United Methodist Church in Slidell have a lot of volunteers to thank the next time they have recess in their new playground.

Starting Thursday, a horde of volunteers from Slidell, Texas, and the Louisiana State University rolled up their sleeves and descended on the church to rebuild a playground that was destroyed in Hurricane Katrina.

“The storm just washed away the playground,” Director of Children’s Ministries Heidi Weber said as she watched workers turn the empty lot behind the church into a jungle of bright yellow and red playground equipment.

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For the past two years, Weber and the church have been collecting donations and getting grants to pay for the equipment.

“We’ve gotten a lot of help from the community,” Weber said.

The church got the equipment from a Texas company called Grounds 4 Play. However, the president of the company, Robert Davis, decided to sweeten the pot. He and four of his employees came to Slidell to help in planning and construction of the playground, free of charge.

“We figured it would save them some money on labor costs, and we really wanted to do something to help the area,” Davis said.

Along with Davis and his colleagues came volunteers from Slidell, employees of Home Depot, workers with Americorps and four LSU students from the Wesleyan Foundation who gave their time and energy.

There was even a last-minute volunteer who was just walking by.

“I saw them working and thought they might need a hand,” said Hevert Michel, a Jamaican native who has lived in Slidell for eight years.

Weber said it will take about three days for the project to be completed, and the children will have a new place to play on Monday.

“We’ve been planning this for a long time. It’s a little unbelievable to see it actually happening,” Weber said.