What's Project Playground?
It started with a dream, and it’s quickly becoming a reality. Project Playground is a fundraising project for an exciting prospective addition to our campus: An autism-friendly school playground!
For many years, we have dreamed of adding a special needs-adapted playground to our school. The more we saw the need, the more we wished we could one day give this gift to our students. Today, we are excited to announce we have a plan. We have partnered with ATHCO, LLC to design and build the playground of our dreams.
The addition of this playground is more than just a new swing set, climber, and slide; it signifies infinite possibilities for children ages 5-21 to continue learning and growing in a safe—and fun—environment.
Our goal is to start construction on July 1st, 2019.
Why is an autism-friendly playground important?
For children, play is more than just a fun energy outlet: It is an educational activity that is intricately linked to their physical, mental, and intellectual wellbeing. For the children served at Heartspring, play is a critical component of their education.
This playground is a promise of countless learning and development opportunities for our students. Through play, children at Heartspring learn to appropriately and safely socialize with their peers, practice language skills, and even partake in certain daily-living activities such as mobility, safety, and leisure time and recreation.
What’s our fundraising goal?
The project in itself is $200,000 for the main area. This includes a state-of-the-art rubber surface and adapted playground equipment to ensure the safety of students.
We have $100,000 set aside for the project, and we hope to raise an additional $100,000 with the help of our generous donors, community supporters, parents, and partners. With an additional $65,000, we make our dream playground even better and include the second area with the stepper rock climber, peak rock climber, and sway fun glider.
