Group will now focus on raising the needed $4 M
Published in the March 16- 29, 2016 issue of Morgan Hill Life
By Staff Report
Photo by Marty Cheek
Volunteers work on a preliminary design for the Inclusive Playground planned for Morgan Hill’s Community Park.
The Morgan Hill Inclusive Playground Project took a giant step forward March 9 at the monthly team meeting when Verde Design consultants showed the volunteers various concept drawings of what the facility might look like.
Corbin Schneider, senior project manager at Verde, gave a slide show of the various concepts which follow the theme of “Natural Stones, Trees and Animals” for the playground equipment. The theme first emerged after idea-generating workshops with local elementary school children. High school students also gave their thumbs up to the theme, and it was “reinforced” during a January community feedback session held at the Community and Cultural Center, Schneider said.
Among the ideas proposed at the meeting was one having animal footprints planted into the concrete walk that will go around the park so kids can follow the footprints to animal homes.
“The community said, ‘We want natural. We want the stones. We want animals. We want the natural look,’” he said. “That didn’t come from Verde. That came from the kids and they all pretty much said the same thing. They told us, ‘You listened to us, this is what we were looking for.’”
The development of the concept drawings opens up the project to its next stage — fundraising about $4 million to build it. A scaled-down version of the playground was originally estimated to cost $2 million.
Verde will work with the city of Morgan Hill and the inclusive playground team to develop the collateral material to go to donors and start asking for money, Schneider said.
“The main thing is that they get a head of steam behind them and get people excited about the fundraising,” he said. “There are many different avenues and opportunities for a project like this. There are very few projects like this in the Bay Area that really meet the needs of the broader community rather than just specific needs.”
The playground is designed to allow all children to play together whether they be able bodied or have physical or mental challenges, he said. It will have a wide range of sensory equipment and be open for wheelchair access and access for the blind, he said.
Not just Morgan Hill families but people from San Jose, San Martin, Gilroy and San Benito County have been involved with the project because they realize that this is a regionally-benefitting playground, he said.
“We find that when you work with a community and get their voice, get their buy-in, the thing that gets built is worth being built and people get excited and when they have the grand opening everyone shows up and it becomes a destination,” he said. “It’s more fun doing this kind of park than parks where the city says we know what we want to build, let’s go and build it.”
The project began when Morgan Hill couple Ron and Shirlee Locicero saw a report about Tatum’s Garden in Salinas and thought Morgan Hill would be an outstanding place for a similar inclusive playground. They began the process in February 2015 and have seen the project grow over the last year as volunteers dedicate themselves to the project, Ron said.
Now the fundraising stage is beginning. The Locicero’s will dedicate themselves to finding donors both at the corporate level, small and mid-sized business level and individuals.
For $1 million, a business or individual can possibly get naming rights to parts of the park or the entire park, he said, emphasizing that the team is still working out the details of this
The project recently received a $30,000 grant from Junior League of San Jose as well as a $5,000 grant from Kaiser. The city of Morgan Hill has given $300,000.
