Ninety volunteers from around the country came to a hotel on the Atlantic-Neptune Beach border on Thursday to build two playsets in less than two hours for two families of two kids diagnosed with cancer.
Those were a lot of numbers, but it all added up to a moment the helpers hope will last forever for these kids.
“It’s unbelievable. It truly is one of those moments you will never forget,” said Amber Payne, one of the people who helped build the playsets at the One Ocean Resort.
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It was organized by the Roc Solid Foundation, a Virginia-based nonprofit that builds playsets around the U.S. for families of kids fighting cancer. They took each of the volunteers through the steps of building both playsets, which the kids who received them were later surprised with.
“It’s the best tears in the world, the best tears in the world,” Payne said. “There’s not a dry eye, I mean it’s like waterworks.”
Action News Jax was there when the two families walked their kids out to see the new additions to their backyards. As the kids walked outside, all the volunteers were gathered to cheer them on as they climbed the ladders, swung on the swings and slid down the slides of the playsets for the first time.
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They saw messages written onto the playsets by each of the volunteers, including Payne, who wrote, “love, peace, happiness lives!”
“It was just so incredible and life-changing for me and for them,” said Payne.
After the reveal of the playsets, the Roc Solid Foundation took them down to be delivered to the homes of each of the families, with the promise that they would be put back up again at each of their homes only a few hours later.
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