A couple dozen citizens, young and older attended the groundbreaking Tuesday evening for Freedom Park in Packard Woods.
The all-inclusive playground has been a dream of Tony Gamble’s for a number of years. Seeing his youngest son who is disabled watch as the other children ran and played on the equipment at the park broke his heart and so he started looking for a park that would include everyone. After visiting the all-inclusive park at Fort Wayne and seeing his son play with other kids made him realize that Plymouth needed a park where everyone could play.
Gamble gathered other families with children with disabilities and created a committee to start planning a park for Plymouth that would allow everyone to play together. They looked at different options including playground equipment, play surfaces, fundraising and locations.
On Tuesday ground was broken for the first of three phases of Freedom Park. Phase 1 includes the main, large play structure, a few other pieces of play equipment plus a zero-g-chair, which is a high back swing that allows children who required additional support to swing alongside their peers. The first phase is should be complete by early summer.
A splash pad is part of phase 2, while phase 3 includes a sensory garden.
The Freedom Park committee is continuing to raise funds for phases two and three by selling bricks that will be used to help build the entrance to the playground, and hosting its second annual color run in Centennial Park on August 1, 2015.
