ShawneeDispatch.com

By first thing Friday morning, three days’ worth of deliveries will have deposited 135 tons of sand outside Wonderscope Children’s Museum, 5705 Flint St.

By the time the air horn blows at 4 p.m., dozens of hands will have transformed the sand into jumbo sculptures ranging from the Death Star to Dorothy from “The Wizard of Oz.”

At least that’s the plan for Sand in the City, coming this weekend to Shawnee.

The event, a fundraiser for Wonderscope, involves teams from metropolitan area businesses competing to create the best sand sculpture. Teams will sculpt on Friday, and Family Fun Days on Saturday and Sunday will provide a chance for members of the public to see the sculptures, enjoy live entertainment and activities — including building smaller sandcastles of their own.

In the past few months, team members have had multiple training sessions to learn basic sand-sculpting techniques and to practice building their envisioned projects, said Wonderscope executive director Lauranne Hess.

Sand in the City founder Bert Adams led some, and each team has its own architect from a group of professionals volunteering from area firms.

“The ideas are awesome, and then the architects have been working very closely with those teams to draw out the ideas,” Hess said.

Gloria Zamora Kahler, promotions partnership manager for Wonderscope, said the process has been challenging for team members.

A lot of teams, at the outset, were very excited, she said. When they tried their hands at sand sculpting and realized how difficult it was, they wondered what they’d gotten into. Then, she said, they started getting the hang of it and realizing, “Wow, this is really cool.”

“It’s kind of a wave of emotions,” she said.

Hess said Wonderscope had hoped that 15 to 18 teams would enter the competition.

With only 11 teams participating, it remains to be seen whether Wonderscope will meet its fundraising goal, she said. The museum has some additional fundraising activities planned during Family Fun Days, including opportunities for the public to purchase “Sand Dollars” to vote for their favorite sculptures.

Hess said a secondary goal of the event is building awareness about Wonderscope. The museum hopes to make Sand in the City an annual event and build up from this year, she said.

“We’ve got a great event planned and hope we get a good crowd out,” she said.

Hess added that a number of community donations have helped the event — not the least of which is Kaw Valley Sand and Gravel’s donation of sand.

The business is even coming back to get the sand, she said, “which is a lot harder than delivering it.”

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