TWIN FALLS, Idaho — Parents, community members, and civic organizations joined the Twin Falls School District for a ribbon cutting on a new adaptive playground at Harrison Elementary. The vision is to see more adaptive playgrounds across Idaho
- Play is an important part of development and learning for all ages, but too often children with mobility impairments are left out
- With the addition of a new adaptive playground at Harrison Elementary Preschool, there are now three adaptive playgrounds in Twin Falls.
- After a fundraising success to install adaptive playground equipment at Sawtooth Elementary in Twin Falls earlier this year, Idaho Playground Projectbegan working towards a vision of making playgrounds accessible across Idaho.
(Below is the transcript from the broadcast story)
A new adaptive playground is officially open for monkey business at Harrison Elementary Preschool in Twin Falls.
"So often these kids are working so hard to do things that maybe we take for granted, whether it's walking, talking, eating, we don't want them to have to work hard to just be a kid and play," Kim Leonard told me at the ribbon cutting.
Leonard is one of the parents turned volunteers who took on the mission of helping children with mobility limitations enjoy their local playground
"We want every kid to be able to play. I think we all know how important play is for learning, developing motor skills, social skills, everything in between," Leonard said. "We just want to make sure that every kid has that opportunity."
Over the last two years, a group of parents, volunteers, and advocates raised money to install an adaptive playground at Sawtooth Elementary, which was completed this spring.
Now, community organizations, like the Rotary After Hours, see ways they can help the vision along.
"A big part of what we're doing came because of the sawtooth playground project," Leonard said.
Building on that momentum, the new Idaho Playground Project was formed, now hoping to make more of these adaptive playgrounds available statewide.
"Our kids are loving it and they're so excited about this project and I can't wait to watch them play together," said Harrison Elementary Principal Michelle Larson.
"We have a couple of students who have mobility issues and we have some students that have wheelchairs and so we want everybody to be able to play together and have that experience," Larson said.
"Hopefully, we can replicate in different districts across the state," Leonard said. "It will provide education and advocacy for all of these schools so that they can do the same thing that we're doing here at Harrison."
