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Ronnie Lott Helps After Schoolyard Arson Fire

June 21, 2001

San Francisco Chronicle — The vandals who set fire to the playground at Hawes Elementary may have done the Redwood City school a favor. When they burned the equipment to the ground June 5, they also ignited a blaze of compassion that spread to NFL Hall-of-Famer Ronnie Lott and translated a flurry of donations.

Yesterday, the students got to spend their last day of school with the former 49er football star – and look forward to a bigger, better playground with basketball hoops, tetherball poles and park benches.

"We were devastated, but the goodness is overshadowing the pain," said parent Theresa Senz, one of more than 100 volunteers who erected the $35,000 play structure just three days before it was destroyed.

Redwood City police are offering a $500 reward for information leading to the arrest of the culprits, who torched the metal and plastic play equipment in the middle of the night.

The charred, collapsed climbing gym was fenced off yesterday.  Kids at the 380-pupil school kicked balls around the blacktop, which in the way of organized play offered only four-square diagrams.

In the gym, Senz joined other parents, teachers and students to welcome Lott, whose All Starts Helping Kids foundation has ponied up $5,000 for the cause.

A handful of students sported Steve Young and Jerry Rice jerseys, though none of them had been born when Lott left the Niners in 1990 to join the Raiders.

But that didn't matter to the kids, who were already giddy with thoughts of summer vacation.  They greeted Lott like they would a rock star, and mobbed him in similar fashion as he dodged the media to make his getaway.

"He's so cute!" one girl cooed.  "He's an ex-49er," declared another.  "I didn't know who he was before today," admitted her friend.

Looking more like a Silicon Valley exec than a pro athlete in a white dress shirt, houndstooth slacks and black loafers, Lott told the kids he was there to teach them about helping people.

"One of the things I remember from when I was a kid was I had a teacher who said you want to have big ears, and if I listened to people, that would make me a better person," he said.  "Well, I heard what happened here."

Lott, 42, told the kids that he was really old now, but someday he would be really, really old.

"You're going to be like 20, 25, and you'll see this old guy crossing the street, and you'll say, "There goes Ronnie Lott. I remember him," he said.  "When I get old, I want you to help me, and help other people."

Lott's donation will go toward the insurance deductible the school must pay before it receives another play structure.  The deductible is expected to be no more than $10,000, said Principal Bernie Vidales.

The school also will pay for labor costs, estimated at $3,000 to $4,000.  With the help of donations garnered from schools as far away as Livermore, Hawes will be able to expand its play area beyond what was burned down, Vidales said.

And that's welcome news for the kids, most of whom are Latino and who live in apartments that have no yard in which to play.  For two years, the school has gone without play equipment because its previous structures were deemed unsafe and removed.

The structure that was burned down was one of 19 playgrounds funded by a $500,000 anonymous donation to the Redwood CitySchool District that was matched by the City Council.  It was the fourth to be built.

More than 100 volunteers spend their Saturday on June 2 pounding nails and spreading mulch. 

“It was a fabulous feeling to see everyone working together,” said Senz, whose daughter Kelcy is a first-grader and whose son Christian, 4, will attend Hawes next year.  "There was no boundary of English or Spanish."