The Dimond district center is home to 50 emotionally disturbed children who live there full-time, usually for 14 to 18 months. An additional 25 children attend the day school, according to Jack Soares, chief development officer for the center.

"About 85 percent of these children are wards of the court," Soares said. "They are emotionally or academically unable to attend public school."

The center aims to place the residents with foster families or group homes, and put them back in the public schools.

"These kids need to be in a family setting," Soares said. "We do a good job. We're family-like, but we're not a family."

The atmosphere around the school was party-like on Aug. 26 as volunteers shoveled wood chips, painted a large U.S. map, four-square boxes, and a hopscotch grid in bright primary colors on the asphalt, and put together a three-level play structure.

The 150 Home Depot volunteers, who came from 12 Bay Area stores, also sanded and painted the school's picnic tables, planted a flower garden, and tidied up inside the building.

The Home Depot employees, "are here on their day off," said Michael Dempski, district "team depot" captain. "They're not paid to be here."

Meanwhile, the children, ages 6 to 14, built planter boxes, tool boxes, and periscopes, supplied by Home Depot, and looked on as the play structure they helped design came to life where previously there was only a sandbox. The new structure includes a climbing wall, chain-link climbing net, bridge, zip line, bouncy seat and spiral slide.

The project was funded with $40,000 from Home Depot in partnership with Kaboom, a non-profit organization that helps children's organizations build playgrounds all over the U.S., as well as $15,000 from the center's auxiliaries, including the Daffodils and the Junior Alliance, according to Soares.

The Lincoln Child Center applied for the new playground through Kaboom's Web site, which receives applications from all over the country and submits them to Home Depot, according to Sherry Caraway, Kaboom's community affairs supervisor.

Reach Tricia Caspers at 510-748-1682 or## tcaspers@cctimes.com.