How many decking screws could you coat with soap in half an hour?

“We don’t have that much,” said Evelin Rosas, biting her lip in concentration as she tries to calculate how many finished screws she’s added to the plastic milk jug in front of her. “Maybe, like, 20?”

“I got, like, 60 already,” chimed in tablemate Kyle Guy, demonstrating his efficient two-stroke technique on a well-worn bar of Ivory. “All I do is just push down and rub it.”

The two 7-year-olds joined the rest of Gary Hilberg’s second-grade class at Wilson Elementary School Wednesday morning for an unusual project: coating 2½-inch screws with soap for the army of volunteer construction workers building a new community playground on the site of the old Wildcat Park at their school.

“It makes the screws go in the wood easier,” explained Dana Marlow, 8.

Actually, the decking material for the new playground is Trex, a wood-plastic composite. It will take 35,000 to 40,000 screws to complete the project, estimated organizer Mark Hoffman, and lubricating them with soap will really help the job go faster.

“It just reduces the friction,” Hoffman said. “It’s easier on the workers — and the tools.”

There’s a job for everybody, it seems, in the weeklong all-volunteer construction project, and Wilson students have been taking 30-minute shifts on the soap line during the schoolday.

“It was their opportunity to pitch in and help with Wildcat Park,” Hilberg said.

The kids were happy to do it, he added.

“Absolutely,” he added with a laugh. “They got out of math!”

But they haven’t stopped counting. Andria Barker, an 8-year-old who favors the three-stroke method of soap application, estimated she added 80 screws to the done pile.

They haven’t taken their eyes off the prize, either.

“Next year we’ll be in third grade and we’ll be at this park,” Dana said. “And we’ll get to play on it as much as we want.”

Even though these workers are young, they’re very productive.

The soaping was supposed to continue through Friday, but Roy Hart, a retired Wilson teacher who was supervising the screw crew Wednesday morning, said the job was well ahead of schedule.

“We’ll probably have it all done by the end of the day (Thursday),” Hart said.

Bennett Hall is the business editor for the Gazette-Times. He can be reached at 758-9529 or bennett.hall@lee.net.

WEDNESDAY NUMBERS

• Volunteers: 295

• Volunteer hours worked: 1,106

• Funds still needed: $15,000

• Bottles of water consumed: 40 cases

• Most urgent needs: Rakes, shovels, extension cords, hammers, hand grinder, cordless and electric drills, food donations, more volunteers

• How to help: Go to www.newwildcatpark.org

WILDCAT PARK

Wildcat Park was built by volunteers in 1989 at Wilson Elementary School, where the elaborate wooden structure did double duty as a playground for the school and the community. Last year it was dismantled for safety reasons. This week, hundreds of volunteers are building a new Wildcat Park on the same site.

The Corvallis Gazette-Times is chronicling this communitywide effort in the newspaper and on the Internet. Go to www.gazettetimes.com for daily stories, photos, construction updates and Webcam images from the project site.

(Thursday, May 31)