Calling everyone who has helped to build an accessbile playspace! What tips do you have for others who are thinking about or already in the process of building their playspace? Please share some of your unexpected set-backs, hard-learned lessons, and other words of wisdom so anyone currently facing this huge task can benefit from your experience. Any and all information is useful...you never know who's dealing with the same issue as you did. Thanks for sharing!
When we built our skatepark we wrestled with the same issues. Our initial plan was to design and plan a park and turn the kids loose on it. Then we invited the kids to get involved and the costs increased significantly as they designed their ideal facility, ( a lot different than my ideas) . At some point you have to cut off the input and take some action towards getting things done. But you do need to involve the groups who will be using the park in the process. I found the KABOOM website I was using at the time helped me to not only keep track of ideas it also kept me on schedule. It is easy to get boged down by a large project and get too many people with good intentions and good ideas. The KABOOM planner kept us focused and moving ahead within our means. So my advice is to stay on track, set deadlines and continue to move forward.
Dbach
I like what you said about collecting the kids' ideas and involving the groups who will be using the space. How did you go about doing this? Did you talk to kids at other skate parks? What groups did you consult and how did their feedback change your plans?
I also agree with the sentiment of "stay focused and move forward." In playspace planning, as in most of life, getting bogged down in the details is easy to do and can prevent you from getting the job done. The balance between putting in enough time & thought and not keeping the project in the planning stages forever can be a tricky one.
Finding an excavation company to help out with the project by donating their services. Right now, that is the only set-back we are facing. We need one by April 23. Another issue we're having is trying to get a hold of officials from the city to join in and volunteer their labor on our Build Day June 27. If anyone has any suggestions on how to ask excavation companies to donate their services or knows of anyone in the Pittsburgh area that would be interested, please let us know! Other than that, how do you raise 10,000 dollars in less than a month?
~Jen - LETA Playground Project
Hi there,
We're building a playground on June 23rd and have gotten a construction company to donate site work time. We have gotten three offers of help actually. Here's how we promoted that we needed the help. Word of mouth through our local Moms Club. (obviously heavy users of the playground). One the members had a neighbor with a construction company and she asked him. We also put a listing in the local newspapers about our build day and need for donors and volunteers and we got two others that way. Also, of course, we told them we'd put them on the permanent donor board. Another incentive might be to offer to submit a photo to the local papers of them actually doing the work, so they get more recogition. WE also contacted the local papers to run stories on our progesss and in the stories highlight that we need certain services donated.
On getting "town officials" to volunteer. I was going that route too, until our town manager indicated he'd prefer to have the users of the playground participate in its building vs. town employees who might live in other towns and not use the playground at all. I thought he had a good point.
Just my two cents.
In 1 wk. we will be participating in our community build. We did all our fund raising, planning, organizing and excuvation...and then 2 weeks ago we went out to look at the surface area that was completed and began to panic. We have been planning an accessible playground to replace an old set of climbing bars. The new surface area had 3 of the 4 sides with slopes that was greater than anticipated...but after numerous meeting with the contractor, parents and school administration we did intensive brainstorming. We brought in an outside building inspector with experience related to ADA standards and now are reassured that we can use the 1 end of the surface area about 10' in length as the wheelchair accessible entrance.
So don't give up and always remember to get all team members and community resources together for creative solutions. We will be able to continue to move forward on our scheduled build day-Aug. 10.