WAYNE -- When Wayne Elementary School students arrive at school Monday, a newly constructed playground they helped design will await them.

Between now and then, a 300-strong crew of residents, teachers, school administrators, Maranacook Community High School students, Home Depot employees and dozens of others will be hard at work, day and night, assembling the play structure.

The playground will replace the castle-themed structure built at the school in 1988 that was condemned last year for structural deficiencies and removed from school property earlier this year.

The new structure -- like the one it's replacing -- is being built almost entirely by volunteer labor. This version will also be built at no cost to taxpayers. The more than $70,000 needed to fund the project has been raised privately, said Jeff Ireland, chairman of the playground committee.

"There's so many people who have pitched in in so many different ways," he said.

"Everyone's really geared up," said Kim McKee, the mother of two Wayne Elementary School students who has been recruiting volunteer builders for the project.

McKee and the five other members of the committee planning the playground's construction worked feverishly in recent months to seek out volunteers, raise funds and find the needed tools.

"We're trying to make it something fun," McKee said.

The construction that starts Wednesday was set in motion June 29, when Wayne students offered their ideas for a new play structure. Barry Segal, playground designer at the Ithaca, N.Y., firm Leathers Associates, sketched out a blueprint later that day that incorporated the students' ideas.

Among other features, the new playground will feature climbing and rock walls, a ladder tower, swings, monkey bars and a "shaky bridge." In the spring, volunteers will add a brick pathway with the names of every current Wayne Elementary School student and project sponsors.

Leathers Associates only designs playgrounds to be built by community members. One of the firm's employees will be on hand in Wayne from Wednesday to Sunday, the scheduled construction days, to oversee the building.

McKee and Ireland said they've filled many of the volunteer shifts with Wayne residents who have construction expertise.

"We have a lot of really talented, good people in the town of Wayne," Ireland said.

As they prepared for construction, playground committee members also found their share of corporate help, McKee said.

Central Maine Power Co., for example, on Monday drilled holes that will be filled with cement as the playground's foundation. Kaplan Electric is donating equipment to light up the playground work area during the night construction shifts. And Home Depot in Augusta is dispatching six employees on paid time to help out with the building process.

Aside from procuring donations, the Wayne Playground Committee raised funds throughout the summer months by sponsoring a spaghetti supper, making door-to-door appeals and selling raffle tickets for a handmade quilt, a Shaker table and a kayak donated by Belgrade Canoe & Kayak.

When construction is completed Sunday, McKee said, volunteers will clear away the tools to make way for Wayne children to get a sneak peak of the new play structure.

"That's the one thing I'm looking forward to Sunday evening," Ireland said, "is seeing kids clmb and jump and leap. They've been for a couple years now without something really to play on."

Matthew Stone -- 623-3811, ext. 435

mstone@centralmaine.com