A Handicapped-Accessible Playground is Coming to Hillcrest Elementary

DOWNERS GROVE, IL – A universally-designed playground is coming to Hillcrest Elementary School. The Downers Grove District 58 Board of Education approved construction of a new handicapped-accessible playground at the school. The project is expected to be ready by the start of next school year.

Peg Chaidez, who led the project, worked with local donors and charitable organizations to raise more than $500,000 to build the playground.

“This has been such an incredible project,” she said. “I’ve never had this kind of opportunity to make a change.”

Chaidez started the Dream Build Play Experience nonprofit organization to fund and build a safe and universally designed playground, the first of its kind within a 20-mile radius. Children, such as her son Owen, cannot use the current playground because woodchips would get stuck in their wheelchairs.

She launched a crowdfunding campaign two years ago to pay for the playground but said she faced several challenges before reaching her goal.

Her website says that all funds raised will make sure all kids, of all abilities, can safely play and learn.

Chaidez realized while raising the money and still establishing her nonprofit organization that she needed a partner organization to hold onto the money.

After talking to several organizations, she partnered with Abide In Me, a Lemont-based nonprofit that serves people with disabilities.

It ultimately will be called “Owen’s Playground, a Playground for All Abilities.”

Hillcrest students chimed in on what they envisioned for the playground. The most important aspect to the students was being able to include all of their friends on the playground.

“The ramps aren’t wide enough,” she said. “Not all their friends can be up there [on the equipment].”

Playground features:

• a recycled rubber surface instead of wood chips

• a relaxation station for quiet reading

• double-wide ramps

• more climbing structures

• a merry-go-round

• a ga-ga pit, an enclosed area to play games in

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Photo via dbpexperience.com