Project Details
It's a gorgeous and sunny day and your about to go outside to enjoy the weather and play with your friends. Your teacher wheels you up the playground and all your friends run to get on the swings and slide down the slide and then the realization hits, as it does every day at this time; that you cannot swing on the swings or slide down the slide because you are in a wheelchair and the equipment is not accessible for you. This is a daily reminder for so many of our physically and severely cognitively delayed students here at Thomasville City Schools. Our primary pre-k-3rd grade school and our elementary 4-5th grade school does not have equipment that all of our students can access easily. Our goal and mission is to provide a perfect playground that is both inclusive and enjoyable. Our mission is to build a structure that will teach and educate kids on the importance of healthy living and promote inclusive play and all that it entails.
We are seeking funding to be able to build an inclusive playground at our primary and elementary school and/ or be able to add inclusive and adapted equipment to the current playgrounds. We would like to build a playground that will allow all children, regardless of physically or cognitive disabilities to be able to interact and play every day. Physical health is a very important part of a student’s life and contributes to their daily lives. We want to help promote healthy living through exercise and encourage students to interact with each other in a positive, helpful, nurturing and loving way on the playground.
Our plan is to contract with a playground company to help with our design and meet our students needs and then construct the playground in 3 phases that would take no more than 1 full year to complete.
Due to budget cuts and limited availability to money in education, we are unable to cover the costs of a new inclusive and adapted playground. All children deserve to be able to play and access the equipment and it shouldn't matter what disability they have.
Thomasville is a primarily low income community that has lost most of its commercial furniture business to oversee companies. The town is filled with abandoned buildings and very limited access for kids to play anywhere. For a large portion of our students, the physical activity they get once a day at school during recess is the only opportunity they will have. That is why it is so crucial they we be able to provide a safe and inclusive playground that all kids can play on.
