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INGLESIDE – Children jumped, crawled, climbed and slid at the new playground in Ingleside during the grand opening of the first American with Disabilities Act playground in Grant Township.
While children played during the sunny, breezy Saturday morning, the adults walked around inspecting the quality of the equipment and taking notice of its disability-friendly features – not often found on more traditional playgrounds.
“Kids have the regular, long, curvy slide and then there’s the roll down slide; important for kids who can’t pull themselves down,” said Carissa Dunkelberg of Fox Lake, who is part of the Gewalt Hamilton company that helped with the construction of the playground.
The ADA approved slide with its blue-colored rolling pins can aid a child to roll down the slide, without pinching, and without the child having to use any upper or lower body strength.
Grant Township Supervisor Kay Starostovic thanked all who worked to make the playground a reality at the Field of Dreams Park.
“This park is your park,” Starostovic told the crowd, before inviting everyone, big and small, to go play.
Other ADA accessible features include the sidewalk, which allows for wheelchairs to go from the parking lot all the way up the paved sidewalk and onto the turf. There’s no wood chips or sand at this ADA playground.
The turf, officials thought, is the safest material for the playground’s surface.
“It has a shorter blade that is easy maintenance, it doesn’t get hot and when it rains; it filters through the turf and out a nearby ditch, so, when it’s hot kids can still sit on it and when it rains there are no puddles,” Dunkelberg said.
There are also plans for a concession stand and a sheltered picnic area on top a hill that overlooks the playground and the baseball fields nearby.
“It seems they thought of everything,” said Julia Mazur of Ingleside, who took her 8-year-old daughter, Audrey Mazur to try out the playground that morning.
The most popular stop at the playground, though, was the 10-spin-merry-go-round. The first one in the township and the third in Lake County, the special carousel has five seats for children who may have limited mobility and five other standing areas for children to stand and turn the wheel on. Every item on the playground was built in the U.S.
Construction cost of the playground was $253,000 and funds came from Volo impact fees and fundraising.
The playground is located on the Grant Township Field of Dreams Park, south of the Township Road Commissioners office at 26535 Molidor Road in Ingleside.