Parents talk about why they want new Soda Springs playground

In September, Friends of the Soda Springs City Park were just getting their fundraising efforts underway for a new city playground.

Now, the group has raised $76,000. It’s going to take a total of $350,000 to build the new playground and splash pad but coordinators of the project are pleased with the progress they’ve made to this point.

The goal of the new playground is to have a playground for the city that’s accessible to all kids. Kids who are too young, or have special needs or disabilities, aren’t always able to utilize everything a standard playground has to offer.

“When you have one child that’s too young, or a child with special needs, that family isn’t able to play here at the park together so we want to be able to bring them together in play,” said Laura Lind, one of the coordinators for the playground.

The playground will have features that will allow for kids in the community in wheelchairs, or those with prosthetic limbs, to have access to the equipment. It will also have equipment geared toward kids who are very young.

Parents feel that’s what it should be about – one playground fits all.

“As a mother of five children, I found it difficult for me to bring my children here to this playground,” Lind said. “There weren’t a lot of options for my younger kids to be able to play on.”

“Even though they have special needs, their emotional and social needs are the same as any other kid,” said Cami Hepworth, who has two kids with special needs. “So being able to provide them with playground equipment where they can spend time with their friends and keep up with them, is going to be so huge to their development.”

The current playground also has some pretty old equipment, which Friends of the Park want to get updated with this new playground. The new playground would include rubber surfacing as well. Lind said having that rubber surfacing is a huge safety boost. She said around 200,000 kids in the U.S. are injured each year from falling off playground equipment and most of those are head injuries from hitting the ground so hard. The rubber surfacing helps to reduce that impact, and hopefully reduce the number of injuries as well.

Lind said the rubber surfacing serves another purpose for their proposed playground – it helps further enhance that all access goal. It allows for wheelchairs and strollers to move easily on it.

Both kids and parents are excited about the new playground and all it would bring.

“Because it’s going to be really fun and not just really old stuff but some new stuff,” said Jaydie Brown, six years old, who is excited for a new park her classmates can all play on.

“It’ll make me so happy to be able to see my children play with their peers just like any other child,” Hepworth said.

Georgia Brown, another coordinator for the project, said they have received several pledges in lieu of immediate donations. So if you want to donate to the project but can’t do it right away, you can make pledge amounts and once the full amount has been reached, those pledges can be made into official donations. Those interested can find contact information for the group on its Facebook page.