A new playground has Okotoks families smiling after two years of hard work. The Riverside play structure, at North Railway Street and 32 Avenue, was due for an upgrade within the next few years and was chosen as the site for an accessible playground. It all began when Okotokian Jodi Halpin wrote a letter to Mayor Bill Robertson expressing a need for an inclusive park in August 2016. “I never imagined that two years later I’d be here,” said Halpin as she bounced daughter Ashlyn on a four-seat seesaw with chairs suitable for special needs or young children. She said Riverside Park was where she envisioned the playground being built, and she’s thrilled to have it open to the public. It’s nice to be able to bring both of her daughters to the same playground and have them play together, she said. It’s the same for Tami Alger, who has 14-year-old twins Madison and Emma. Madison was born with cerebral palsy and autism, and relies on a wheelchair, stroller or walker for long distances or uneven ground. Madison loves the new playground. She brought her walker for the first time on Nov. 29 and was blown away. “This is the first time she brought it and she stopped and left it at the bottom and started to walk onto the ramp, and I said, ‘No no, you can bring it with you,’” said Tami. “She was laughing, she thought it was hilarious that she could bring it with her and she laughed the while way over to her favourite slide. “Knowing she could actually bring it was so fascinating to her. She didn’t have to hold on to all the railings.” Madison is no stranger to playgrounds at school, but had grown accustomed to having to leave her walker at the edge of the structure, she said. There was a sense of freedom for her in being able to walk unhindered onto the structure, she said. It’s changed things for their family as well. Twin sister Emma, who will do anything for Madison, including taking the walker back down the ramp so it’s ready for another go-round, was never really able to play with her sister on a park. For mom, the inclusive playground made for some special moments for her 14-year-old children. “One day Maddie and Emma were here swinging side by side and I got the most beautiful pictures of them, which was great,” said Tami. “That’s something I haven’t had a lot in the last 14 years is seeing them together like that.” Besides being fully-accessible, the playground is also completely fenced in to prevent children from wandering off – something the parents fought for during consultation and planning meetings last spring. “Some of these kids, like mine – she’s a runner,” said Tami. “She might not be fast, but she’ll go if she wants to go.” Okotoks parks landscape inspector Bridget Couban said fencing wasn’t something the Town would have thought to include in its $350,000 inclusive playground design. “That was a direct result of parent input,” said Couban. “They were saying some kids can get overwhelmed and they will leave the playground, so this helps everyone have a safe time. “It was a great engagement process and it was something we wouldn’t have thought about, but bringing in those parents’ perspectives made that a priority.” She said overall the Town is pleased with how the playground turned out. Having an accessible park in Okotoks was something that had been on the radar for a while, but having a push from the community helped make it happen, she said. Riverside Park was chosen as a location because it was due for upgrades according to the Town’s maintenance schedule, and it had a large footprint to work with as well as ample parking, she said. It’s much better than some other inclusive parks out there, said mom Stephanie Sonnenberg, whose two-year-old daughter Claire has cerebral palsy and doesn’t walk. She also has a one-year-old son, and said the playground is great for both of her children. During a recent trip to Ottawa she was encouraged to take her children to the country’s largest accessible playground. “The parking lot was 10 minutes away, and then it’s mulch on the ground so you can’t bring your stroller or anything,” said Sonnenberg. “I was carrying both of them. I had a panic attack and it was 10 minutes back to the parking lot.” The park itself wasn’t well thought-out like the one in Okotoks, she said. It was six times the size of Riverside, but all of the play structures were spread out so far it meant picking up both children to walk to the next playground in order to go on a disc swing or other element, she said. And it was right beside a body of water without any fencing, she said. “The biggest inclusion park in Canada was the worst thought-out thing in the world,” said Sonnenberg. “This one is so much better for everyone.”
