LAPORTE — Students, teachers and staff at Hailmann Elementary School in LaPorte worked for the past year to raise money for new playground equipment. But their dreams went up in smoke when someone set fire to all that new equipment.

Police believe someone may have set the fire intentionally. It happened in the middle of the day with no reports of storms and no reports of fireworks in the area.

The fire destroyed $40,000 worth of playground equipment. It was so intense it melted most of the equipment to the pavement.

It’s hard to tell it was once playground equipment — the metal is charred, the rubber melted, and the wood burnt to a crisp.

But that's not all that has people stunned; it's all the hard work that went into getting it.

"I don't understand why someone would burn that down," said Javon Harris who plays at the playground.

The playground at Hailmann Elementary School is a popular spot.

"We usually come here every day and play,” said his brother Austin Harris.

And the idea of a new playground sounded awfully good to kids and parents.

“There were a few bumps and bruises with the old stuff so if they would have nice plastic stuff — that would have been really nice," said Heather Loucks, who lives near the school.

But on Saturday a lot of hard work was gone.

"You can see it all went up," said Randy Thorpe of LaPorte Schools. "There's been a lot of people involved in raising money and working to fund this project. It's really sad that this happened, that's for sure."

In fact, the PTA and kids worked for years to get the equipment — 90 percent of their fundraisers last school year went toward the project.

And that means whether destroying it was a joke, an accident or someone just being mean, it's sure to break a lot of young kids' hearts.

"All the money that they worked for, all the hard work that they did is all burned up and now they can't play on a new play set that they worked hard for,” Austin said. “I don't know why someone did that.”

The new playground was also handicap accessible — something one of the PTA members told WSBT News the current playground is not.

But there may be a light at the end of the tunnel.

School administrators said Monday that they are working with the playground equipment company and their insurance company. They are optimistic they'll get their new playground before the start of the school year.