It’s not every day a child says they left behind a legacy. But that’s what happened on Sept. 15 when 11-year-old Jose Flores helped unveil the $50,000 playground he won for his former elementary school in Chicago in the “A Jugar!: Why My School Needs a New Playground” essay contest.

The essay contest, a joint effort by Nestle Pure Life, Jewel-Osco and Chicago Public Schools, sought to find a Chicago public school deserving of a new playground as part of Nestle Pure Life’s Go Play! Program, a rewards program aimed to promote health and fight childhood obesity, said Sean Kiehl, the company’s national account manager.

“[This] program is to get children outside and active,” Kiehl said. “So we went to Jewel-Osco and said, ‘Why don’t we give playgrounds to schools?'”

Students wrote essays in the spring on the reasons they thought their school needed a playground. While teachers were able to choose the best from each class, each school was only allowed to submit one entry, Kiehl said.  A blue-ribbon committee of educators, civic and community leaders, headed by Chicago Bears offensive lineman Roberto Garza, judged the essays on expression of topic, creativity and uniqueness.

Flores’ essay, which was chosen from McAuliffe Elementary School, 1841 N. Springfield Ave., won his school a state-of-the-art playground, complete with several slides, monkey bars, a jungle gym and a cushioned floor.

Flores’ opening line about what America means to his peers may have helped grab the judges’ attention.

“To some children that attend School 104, this is the land of the Big Mac and the home of the Whopper,” Flores wrote. “If you reward us with a playground, we would spend more time burning those fast-food calories instead of gaining them sitting behind our desks.”

The land the playground now sits on was converted from a faculty parking lot. When Flores wrote his essay, the principal of the school went to Ald. Ariel Reboyras (30th Ward) and asked for permit parking for faculty to park on the side of the school instead. Consequently, an ordinance was passed and the fence around the lot was torn down, leaving room for the school’s new playground, said McAuliffe Elementary School Principal David Pino.

Though the playground was funded by sponsors, it was designed based on input from the elementary students and built in one day by a volunteer group of Chicago-area high school students, said Dale Wernsing, engineer at McAuliffe Elementary.

This new playground was not only needed for exercise but to offer the children a place to have fun uninfluenced by local gangs in North Pulaski, Wernsing, who has worked at McAuliffe for five years, said.

“Just around the neighborhood, because of the gang [infestation], there really isn’t a safe place for the kids to be,”  Wernsing said. He said the fear for Flores’ safety is what stood out to him when he heard Flores’ essay at the unveiling.

“Once school is over, most of us just go home to play video games,” Flores wrote in his winning essay. “The School 104 neighborhood is highly occupied by gang violence so our parents tell us to go straight home because of the danger that lurks in the streets.”

Recess will take place for 10 minutes each day and will be supervised by teachers, Pino said.

“Hopefully, the kids being able to have a place to play and have recess outside will make them better students and work harder,” Pino said. “That’s the ultimate goal-to have a better future.”

“It’s a huge area for them. Now they can really spread out, run around and have fun,” Wernsing said. He said his priority now is to get funding from the community so he can resurface the asphalt for the children.

The contest was also held in the spring in the Aurora school districts, where 10-year-old Diego Ramirez won a playground for his fellow students at McCleery Elementary School, 1002 Illinois Ave., Aurora. Last year, the essay contest was held for the first time in Houston and San Antonio, said Terri Lynn, publicist for Nestle Pure Life.