Autistic-friendly playground at Little City
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Devon Johnson jumped up and down as he approached the colorful new playground on the campus of Little City Foundation in Palatine.
Without hesitating, he ran up its steps, tried out the slides, and climbed up its miniature rock climbing wall.
Although he is nonverbal and on the autism spectrum, Devon cried out in delight each time he tried out a new piece.
One of his therapists, Brandie Geary, watched him play and breathed a sigh of relief.
"Finally, he has a place to climb where it's appropriate," Geary said. "This is just what he needs."
The 2,500-square foot playground is designed to meet the diverse therapeutic needs of children with autism, with its different sensory zones and soothing environment all wrapped up into one.
It took months of planning, and only moved forward after receiving grants from Discover Financial Services in Riverwoods, and KaBoom!, a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit organization dedicated to creating safe play spaces.
Building it took much less time. In fact it went up in one day, when nearly 200 volunteers including 140 from Discover came together on Sept. 24 to pitch in.
They arrived early on a cold and damp morning, and worked in teams throughout the day to assemble the playground, move mulch, mix concrete, build surrounding picnic tables, trellises and planter benches, as well as plant some trees.
"We worked harder knowing it was cold and rainy," said Joanna Kalantzis of Palatine, who works in the corporate communications department of Discover.
By midafternoon, when their work was completed, the sun appeared and seemed to affirm their efforts. The only disappointment after toiling all day was not being able to see the children try out the equipment.
Because it was stabilized in concrete, the playground had to set for at least three days, meaning barriers had to be mounted to keep children and adults at Little City from climbing aboard.
But when the barriers were lifted, the children came home from school and headed right out there,
Vincent Foglioli, 8, approached it somewhat tentatively, but once he tried climbing the steps up to the lower slide and mastering it, he went down, over and over.
Others gravitated toward the swings, while nearly all of them tried out both slides incorporated into the system.
Little City officials described the playground as the first in a series of projects planned for the back of their campus. Next fall they plan to open a day school near the playground which will serve children with autism from the surrounding community.
A larger plan is to construct a Children's Village, moving the residences for children away from their current location near Algonquin Road, back to the calmer end of campus, near the playground and gardens.
Shawn Jeffers, Little City's executive director, worked with the volunteers to build the playground and last week he came out to see residents come out to play.
"This is wonderful, but so many hands brought this together," Jeffers said. "It's not something we could have done without partners. It just proves, that with a collective spirit, you can do anything."
