Feature

One for all

Kiwanians share their talents and skills to build playgrounds where all children can play

By Judi Bailey

What’s it like to never be able to go to a playground? To be walled off from the friendships, the play? It’s not only that you can’t use the swings and other equipment—you can’t even get into the place. All you can do is sit in your wheelchair or stand supported by leg braces, looking through a chainlinked fence pretending to enjoy the other kids playing.

Approximately 6 million children in the United States alone have a disability that impedes their play on a traditional playground. Few communities have play areas to accommodate children of all abilities. But through the leadership of Kiwanians there are solutions coming to fruition. They often are referred to as “Boundless (or Barrier-free) Playgrounds” for, as Jim Cornell, a Kingsport, Tennessee, Kiwanian, says, “We do this so kids of all abilities can play together.”

Aaron for example, has multiple physical abnormalities, including a hearing impairment for which he uses an ear implant that is incompatible with plastic. So he can’t slide down plastic slides.

But in April of 2007, a day of the grand opening, ribbon-cutting style, Aaron could finally play in a milieu of freedom.

“It made the day for me,” says Betty DeVinney, co-chairwoman of the Darrell’s Dream Boundless Playground Committee in Kingsport. “Even his grandparents came. It was great to see him be able to play with his friends and the other kids.”

Through the leadership skills of fundraising, recruiting, delegating, organizing, networking, communicating, and inspiring, Kiwanians pave the way to build playgrounds for kids like Aaron.

Darrell’s Dream

One inspirational leader was Kingsport Kiwanian Darrell Rice. It began with his dream: to build a playground where all children—regardless of their abilities—could play together. Darrell led a communitywide effort to build the playground facility at the park. Unfortunately cancer took him before the project was completed. Not only strong in his life, Darrell was strong in his death: The community rallied to ensure his dream would come true.

“Darrell was a major fundraiser in the community. He knew everyone, knew who to go to to get things done,” Jim says.

Darrell belonged to the Kingsport Kiwanis club, and it was Jim who proposed the club donate US$10,000 to build the central structure of the playground and to display the names of various contributors.

Jim put his top leadership qualities to work: coordination, organization, and the ability to network to recruit volunteers for the day-to-day “grunt work,” as he calls it. Volunteers came from his Kiwanis club, Circle K and Key Club members, the high school football team, ROTC, among others. He paired volunteers with Kiwanis members to guide the helpers.

The playground was named Darrell’s Dream as a tribute to the visionary’s inspirational leader.

Upton’s Vision

The Kiwanis Club of Santa Ana, California’s George Upton was a communicator who listened to the needs of others. When George and other Kiwanians took a group of 23 disabled kids to breakfast, he put this skill to work by inquiring about the children’s likes and dislikes. He learned that only three of the 23 had ever been in a restaurant and only a couple of them had ever been on a playground.

So George spread the word about the community’s need for a fully accessible playground and a partnership soon developed between the City of Santa Ana and the Kiwanis club. The city’s parks department donated five acres of Thorton Park where the project would be constructed.

Right around this time, five-year member Gary Drake tapped into one of his passions. “I got this hairball idea,” he says, “to participate in The Breathless Agony to raise money for some future club project.”

This 114-mile bicycle ride with 1,200 feet of climbing was selected by GreatOutdoors.com to be “One of the Greatest Hillclimbs in North America.” Gary says the ride reminds him of the agony kids who use wheelchairs face every day. He and his wife, Laura, pursued donations to support their rides and raised nearly $15,000. The club decided to use the contributions, in conjunction with the City of Santa Ana, to create a sport center for the Kiwanis Barrier-Free Playground, which would include a full-sized basketball court with adjustable-height hoops. The Santa Ana club had set a goal to raise $90,000 for its construction; it costs approximately $190,000 to build the court. Numerous other fundraising events were held. The club used its networking skills to access the area’s community resources.

A massive awareness campaign was launched and involved all aspects of the news media. Gary, John Karpierz, and other members contacted the business and industry sector.

“It took a lot of work to get the word out,” Gary says, “but once it got rolling, a lot of resources contacted us.”

Not only did the club meet its goal of $90,000, but exceeded it to $100,500.

A community’s gift

Kiwanians bring leadership—and take away inspiration—from every experience. Members of the Kiwanis Club of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, volunteered to help the neighboring Helena Kiwanis club build a barrierfree playground. The experience inspired them with a determination to build one of their own.

Wayne Sisk, then president of the Tuscaloosa club says, “Only four other playground sites like this exist in Alabama and it has been documented that parents will drive 75 to 100 miles so their children will have the exciting experience of playing on outdoor equipment.”

Around the same time the Helena project was under construction, playground plans already were brewing in Tuscaloosa, where the thrust originated with the local United Cerebral Palsy (UCP) association. “UCP of West Alabama presented their boundless playground idea to our Kiwanis club in August of 2006,” says Donnie Grill, Division 4 lieutenant governor of the Alabama District. “Kiwanis stepped in to be a major partner with UCPWA in September 2006.”

The Tuscaloosa club received a $1,000 matching grant in February 2007 from the Alabama District, and the club donated a total of $7,000 to the project. Construction of Phase I (playground and pavilion) began in August and was completed in December. Because the UCP had begun the preliminary stages of the project, members of the Tuscaloosa club focused their administrative abilities on fundraising and coordinating volunteers.

Donnie coordinated the 150 volunteers who were recruited between August and December from organizations including a church, a hardware retailer, and Circle K club and Key Club members.

Kiwanian Jason McNeil, along with a number of others, headed fundraising by using their contacts with the area’s companies to request donations as well as material and construction expertise. Matching grants and contributions from the Alabama District, neighboring Kiwanis clubs, area businesses, and the major contributor—Nucor Steel—brought in $100,000 over the next four years.

The Kiwanians’ courageous leadership made it possible for kids to play together—and successfully—minus the barrier of physical disability. And not only are kids learning to accept one another’s differences, but they are learning to embrace differences of all kinds with understanding and tolerance—one child and one community at a time.

The reward for all this work?

As Wayne Sisk puts it: “To see a child play in a playground for her very first time and to see the tears of joy in the eyes of her parents. They cannot thank you enough.”