LOS ANGELES -- The mission a decade ago was simple: Build "one beautiful playground" for kids with disabilities so they too could soar on swings, frolic in sandboxes and traverse bridges.
For the folks at Shane's Inspiration -- a nonprofit started in 1997 to honor Shane Alexander, who only lived two weeks after being born paralyzed -- that mission seemed strong enough to get the roughly 180,000 kids with disabilities in Southern California to come out and play.
But the children didn't come.
"There were a lot of haunting questions over the last 10 years," said Tiffany Harris, program co-founder, along with Shane's parents, Catherine Curry-Williams and Scott Williams. "Where are the children? Why aren't they coming? And how do we remove the bias? We didn't want this to be a hollow mission."
Today, the program has turned a corner with 16 universally accessible playgrounds in Southern California and more on the way, supported in part by the state's Proposition 40.
There also is an educational program in 40 schools aimed at combating bias against children with disabilities, and monthly play dates have brought out thousands of kids.
And now, waiting around the bend, are 80 playgrounds planned throughout the country and as far away as India.
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