INNISFAIL – For the third time in just over a year a new accessible playground has been built in town.
On Friday (Sept. 22) members of the Innisfail Kinsmen gathered at the westside Mac's/Kinsmen Park at 41 St. and 53 Ave. to put together a new accessible playground on a budget of $89,706.78.
“We're going to finish the playground today. We've got concrete coming in at four o’clock,” said Tim Ainscough, the treasurer and playground chair for the local Kinsmen. “This one is built for two to seven-year-olds. It's more of a tot lot.”
Last month the Kinsmen completed a new accessible facility at the eastside Cannon Park at a cost of $139,729.99, while last year the service club built the town’s first all-inclusive children's playground at Napoleon Park Sports Fields at a cost of $275,000.
“This (Mac's/Kinsmen Park) was an old playground structure that the Kinsmen probably put in here 25 plus years ago,” said Ainscough. “A lot of it was wood, and they (designers) have gone away from wood. Everything is plastic and metal now.
“It’s going to be an up-to-date park that should be good for this part of the community for the next 15 to 20 years,” he said. “The new standard we want is for all of our future playgrounds to be inclusive in all aspects, not only mobility, but visual and hearing and all those cognitive things.”
The new playground at Mac's/Kinsmen Park will be about 2,000 square feet in size.
It will have standard and long-loved features such as slides and swings but the focus is on accessibility.
A quarter of the surface will be rubberized to make it more accessible for children with mobility issues. The rest of the surface is being covered with wood chips.
“We used to do playgrounds with pea gravel. Now they've switched to wood chips wherever we don't do the rubberized surfacing,” said Ainscough.
He added the new playground also has features to benefit children with sight and hearing impairments.
As for moving ahead with another local modernizing playground project for the community, chances are good that could be sooner rather than later as the Kinsmen have finally received a provincial Community Facility Enhancement Program (CFEP) grant of $100,000 to cover the cost of both playground projects this year.
“That will offset the cost the town had put into the projects,” said Ainscough, adding the grant was secured through the support from local MLA Devin Dreeshen. “It (grant) will reduce their costs, and then help us build another playground sometime here in the future.”
Ainscough said no final decision has been made by his service group for the next playground project but there is an eye on Scott's Park at 35 Street and 51A Avenue.
“We have to sit down with the town. I don't believe they were planning on doing one next year but now that we’ve got the $100,000 from CFEP hopefully that will free up some money,” said Ainscough. “I think Scott's Park way down in the southeast part of the community is the next one we'd be looking at.”
