MORGANTOWN — There’s nothing fun about looking at a playground.
You’ve got to get in there and check it out.
BOPARC and its partners are committed to helping every kid do just that through the growing Play for All initiative.
Spearheaded by BOPARC Assistant Director Marissa Travinski with the backing of WVU Medicine, the Play for All program came about in 2018, after changes to playground safety standards resulted in an inventory of existing play facilities.
“What we quickly realized is, due to these updates, there were many of our play structures that were no longer considered compliant, and not only were they not compliant, they were also old,” Travinski said. “Most of our playgrounds are 20-25 years old, if not older. So not only were they old in age, they were old in features, too. Features that allow all children to play cooperatively.”
So they started making changes.
With the financial support of WVU Medicine, BOPARC and the neighborhood, the program first updated the Wiles Hill neighborhood playground with equipment like accessible swings and sensory wheels and slides.
Next came the smaller Marilla Park playground, and bids on an overhaul of the Krepps Park playground “with all the bells and whistles” are due next month.
But the program is really just getting started.
Last November, Travinski met up with Kristin Messenger, the speech therapist who designed the core communication boards for Star City’s Tugboat Depot.
The boards are a form of ACC, or alternative and augmentative communication, used by more than five million Americans who have difficulty communicating verbally.
The end result of that meeting was two-fold.
One, thanks to a $3,500 assist from WVU Medicine, all 11 BOPARC playgrounds will receive core boards.
Two, a community committee with representatives from a number of fields including speech, music, occupational and physical therapies, adaptive physical education and neurology, was formed to help steer the focus of BOPARC — from playgrounds to programming — going forward.
But the first thing the committee wants is input. To that end, a community survey will go live on the BOPARC and WVU Medicine websites in the next week or so.
BOPARC Director Melissa Wiles called the program “a game changer,” and credited Travinski for envisioning the concept and pulling it together.
“Bringing these play spaces up to speed and making an inclusive and interactive environment, I think, for the system as a whole, it’s a huge part of making things better for the community,” Wiles said.
Anyone interested in getting involved with the Play for All committee can contact Travinski at mtravinski@boparc.org.
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