Hello! Thanks so much for being here. It’s funny where life takes you. I never imagined I would be advocating and fundraising for playgrounds, but here we are. As a former teacher, i thought i knew how kids learned best. that was until I became a mom to kid with a developmental delay. Our second born child came along and just didn’t seem to be progressing like he should have. We took the normal first steps of seeking diagnosis and help through therapy, but much to our dismay it didn’t seem to help. Weeks, months almost a year of therapy passed by with zero progress. we felt hopeless and helpless, until one day we walked into our therapy session and something shifted. A box of trains caught the eye of our little guy and our world changed. He opened up and started making sounds, trying to talk, say colors and was enjoying every second. Play opened his mind in ways i never knew possible. This was the beginning of a total awakening for me and over the past few years i have learned and seen with my own eyes the effect that play can have on every kid. It was on that day in therapy i decided i wanted to build a playground that my little guy could enjoy. Little did i know what a need it was. Through our journey of therapies and school i now know how many families are in need of the same thing i wanted to build for our son. A place where their kids with different abilities can play and just be kids.

Another thing we have learned on this parenting journey is that screens and screen time have a severely negative impact on all of our kids, but especially our child with the delay. After consistently seeing the negative attitudes, outbursts and emotional turmoil that followed any screen usage we began a strict no screen regimen in our home just to maintain peace and joy. As time passed we began to see stats and info coming out about the effects that screens are having on our kids and we were so thankful for decisions we made to limit screens. We didn’t know the science or stats we just knew that when our kids had time on a screen they were less joyful, harder to communicate with and just plain difficult. It was for these reasons we decided that we wanted to do somehting to help our kids and the kids in our community to experience a childhood like we had, one full of play. We are not here to say that no kid should ever have screen time or to judge or condemn families that do allow it. We simply want to shed a light on the impact screens can have, and help provide an alternative to screens that kids can enjoy. We hope that building inclusive playgrounds will provide ALL the kids in our community a place to get outside, play and just be kids.

Again, we appreciate you being here and look forward to what is in store.