Where once an empty lot largely went unused, a playground sprang to life Friday. Here, the frame of a swing set, lying on its side. There, a curlicue slide, one piece of an apparatus that included more slides, a ladder and a small climbing wall.

Second-grader Gabrielle Gould watched it all with approval.

"It's tight," she said.

More than 200 volunteers built a playground for Gabrielle and her Cleveland Avenue Elementary School schoolmates. Veteran teachers said it's the first at this 58-year-old Atlanta school, where 95 percent of the students qualify for free or reduced-cost lunch.

"We're really, really looking forward to this," said Lillian Jackson, an instructional specialist who has taught at the school for 23 years. "It's wonderful for the children."

The school raised about $8,000 for the playground. Atlanta-based apartment builder Post Properties' charity foundation provided the bulk, about $60,000. The school and Post formed a relationship three years ago through a Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce program.

Janie Maddox, a Post senior vice president and executive director of the foundation, said she had a goal of building a playground from the first time she visited the school and noticed it didn't have one.

Post, Hands on Atlanta, PR firm Jackson Spalding, school parents and staff from the nonprofit playground builder KaBoom volunteered.

Most, including Post CEO David Stockert, hauled mulch in wheelbarrows or on blue tarps to cover the ground. Others assembled the equipment. Some painted a map of the U.S., four square boxes and a hopscotch grid onto the pavement, while others put together planter boxes and child-sized picnic tables.

An enraptured pre-kindergarten class watched through a window.

About 1 p.m., the school's 450 students, in matching white shirts and blue pants or skirts, gathered around the perimeter of the new playground. Some wondered why the mulch smelled so bad.

After a couple of short speeches and principal Rhonda Ware-Brazier and Stockert's ribbon-cutting, the students released balloons, causing shrieking, jumping and pointing. They then serenaded the volunteers with "Thank You for Being a Friend," the theme song from the 1980s sitcom "The Golden Girls." I'm really happy," said second-grader Deja Earls.