Two wheelchair accessible playgrounds under construction doesn’t constitute a trend, but we hope it turns into one!

There have been two recent articles from west coast newspapers about towns building wheelchair-accessible play areas, citing SMA kids as examples of children who can’t utilize traditional playgrounds.

The first article, which ran in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, tells of a play area in Rainier Valley that’s still under construction, and sounds wonderful…

After five years of work, The Seattle Children’s PlayGarden is quietly thriving with a new basketball court, wooden planting boxes full of strawberries, blueberries, tomatoes, cabbage, corn, beets and radishes, flower beds and picnic tables.

The garden, though, remains a work in progress. Designers have ambitious plans that go far beyond ramps and wheelchair-friendly wood chips. By 2009 they envision a fully accessible tree house, butterfly garden, marsh, classrooms, kitchen, rock scramble, sensory garden, orchard and, of course, a working garden.

It is a detailed plan to accomplish a simple goal of letting all children, those with disabilities and those without, enjoy a neighborhood park.

At many parks, 6-year-old Annie Jones can’t navigate steps up slides and needs a deep swing with a high back because she has spinal muscular atrophy.

“I don’t go on anything,” said Jones, who uses a motorized wheelchair, referring to older parks.

Yet, Jones is like any child. She plays ball with her two sisters, Claire and Lillian, and swings when she can find an appropriate set.

“I don’t see a whole lot of kids in wheelchairs, but I also feel they don’t come out to parks because there is not a whole lot for them to do,” said Annie’s mother, Diane Jones.

Once the PlayGarden is finished, Annie Jones will have plenty to do: work in its garden, play in its water installations and swing.

You can read the entire story at the Post-Intelligencer website.

Meanwhile, down the coast in Orange County, California, the Orange County Register has the story of Courtney Faye Smith, a 10-year-old little girl who asked for a place where she could play like the rest of the kids. The request came when she was four years old. After six years of debate and wrangling over the location, an animated playground called Courtney’s Sandcastle, will be under construction this fall…

The plan calls for two play structures – one, for ages 6-12, taking the form of a castle with a drawbridge and moat. The other, for ages 5 and under, will be in the form of a ship surrounded by an ocean, serpents and sand. The colored surfaces will be rubberized. The swings will have standard seats and special ones for those who arrive in wheelchairs.

In a sensory garden, plants will emit aromas when touched. There will be plants sheared into the shape of animals, a sand-digging area, interactive musical panels, wind chimes, a water sphere and a rock mountain that comes to life with sensor-activated water features and a dragon that breathes mist.

The land and some of the funding for the park is is being donated by SunCal, a developer building a nearby housing community. The park is expected to open by the fall of 2008. To read the whole story, visit the Orange County Register website.

A truly amazing and inspirational story ran this week in the Catonsville (MD) Times about Kavita Krishnaswamy, who recently graduated from the University of Maryland, where she majored in computer science and mathematics. What’s amazing about the story is that she had a perfect 4.0 grade point average. In other words, she didn’t receive a grade lower than “A” during her entire college career. What’s TRULY amazing about the story is that due to having spinal muscular atrophy, she’s unable to move any muscles except the ones in her face, and one finger.

Here’s an excerpt:

The Columbia [MD] resident was born with spinal muscular atrophy, type II, a form of muscular dystrophy.

She can only move the index finger on her right hand.

She has feeling in her entire body, but she can’t control any other muscles other than those in her face.

But when her mother, Pushpa Krishnaswamy, or a friend places her hand on her red track ball, she’s transformed.

“That got me through college and high school and that’s the reason for my 4.0,” said Krishnaswamy, who graduated in 2001 from Wild Lake High School, in Columbia, and from UMBC five years later.

She said her computer’s virtual keyboard allows her to roll the pointer over a letter and click the mouse to type.

The time-consuming process meant Krishnaswamy, a Meyerhoff scholarship recipient, worked many nights late into the morning.

Pushpa Krishnaswamy said her daughter often didn’t go to bed until 4 or 5 a.m. after spending the night and early morning typing her school work.

You can read the entire story on the Catonsville Times website.