New School Playground Allows Fun, Fitness for all
Have You Heard about YOUR Foundation?

The Corydon Democrat

Wednesday, November 1, 2006

By Carrie Johnson

The Harrison County Community Foundation is celebrating its 10th year of serving and giving in Harrison County, so many of its fund-holders and grant recipients are telling their story. This article helps explain how the Foundation's funding impacts many lives in Harrison County.

My work is my playground. I am blessed to be the teacher of a group of exceptional students.

They are all shapes, sizes and abilities. They are strong and funny. They have sweet, complex personalities. They have challenges each day — far beyond anything that most of us ever encounter. I teach students who have severe and/or multiple disabilities.

Our school has a wonderful playground that our whole student body enjoys daily. It has ladders, tunnels, swinging bridges and slides. It also has regulations.

Playgrounds must now have surfaces on which an unexpected fall can be broken in an attempt to protect the children. So, our playground has several inches of pea gravel surrounding every structure. As you can imagine, this is not conducive to either a wheelchair or a small child who has difficulty walking. This wonderful playground presented a dilemma. All of the neat stuff to play on was basically out of reach for most of the students with physical disabilities.

So, our mission to find a way to create an accessible place to play began. As a team, our physical therapist, Dena Rogers, my co-teacher, Karen McCoy and myself submitted our grant application to the Harrison County Community Foundation.

We carefully planned a new, fully accessible playground for our students. We waited, dreamed and hoped. Then, we received a letter from the Foundation that changed the way we play.

With the funding of our grant application, our mission was fulfilled. Over a long, gray winter, we watched our playground come to be. Concrete was poured; the structure came to life. We took pictures and documented as each piece was added. We even wrote books about our dream of a new place to play coming true. Our students now have a fantastic play area right outside the classroom door. It has slides, tunnels, play panels, things to climb, and a cushy, innovative surface that is level and wheelchair friendly.

There are activities on our playground for every student. In the afternoons, we all go outside. We swing and climb. We crawl, slide and build sand castles. We roll; we dig and blow bubbles. We do it all on the rubberized surface that has replaced the pea gravel.

Our area is safely fenced in so that we can run without the worry of going too far. It means so much to have a space of our own. It gives all of the children something to look forward to each day. They get to spend time outdoors and have a wonderful space to stay physically active and fit.

There has also been an added benefit. In the evenings, we share our playground with many children from our community. When there are ball games or other events on our campus, the little ones flock to our wonderful playground. We encourage them to take care of our space and welcome them to have as much fun as we do!

We are eternally grateful for the gift of our play space from the Harrison County Community Foundation. Children benefit from this generosity each day.

Carrie Johnson is a multiple disabilities teacher at North Harrison Elementary School.