Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Neighborhood report

Mother spearheads effort to remodel playground for all

Her own daughter, who uses a wheelchair, would like to be able to play at Grady Elementary School.

By ELISABETH DYER
Published August 5, 2005

A trip to Kate Jackson Park has 6-year-old Sarah Busansky in heaven.

"I like to swing up high, like weee, and then I feel happy," she says.

Playing outside isn't as easy at Grady Elementary School where Sarah started first grade this week. Her wheelchair can't navigate through the wood chips surrounding the playground. A ramp leads onto the equipment but stops, leaving little for her to do but turn around and go back.

Sarah's mom, Stefani Busansky, watched her daughter sit on the sidelines during recess at Grady last year and knew she had to go to work.

She already had a plan, having spearheaded an effort to build Freedom Playground for children of all abilities within MacFarlane Park. Construction is expected to start in September and end in December.

Turning some of her attention to Grady, Busansky designed Imagining Possibilities Playground, a $200,000 play area to be funded by donations and grants. The Children's Board of Hillsborough County has pledged a $20,000 matching grant.

On Monday, Sarah visited friends at Ashley's Espresso, a regular morning stop for her and her 18-month-old sister, Claire. Sarah wore her first-day-of-school outfit: a pink, green and black dress with sparkles and beads. Her backpack rode on the back of her yellow and black wheelchair.

Sarah focuses on her abilities, such as playing soccer with friends, rather than on the limitations of her cerebral palsy. She learned how to read when she was 5 and proved it by reading from a brochure advertising a Sept. 17 Wheel-A-Thon to raise money for Phase 2 of Freedom Playground: a sensory garden and water play area.

Sarah will race 2 miles in her wheelchair for the Sunshine Team.

Her parents insist that she grow up feeling included.

"You take the barriers away, and the barriers in your mind go away, too," Busansky said.

Busansky hopes the playgrounds will become the standard, not an exception.

"They should be the model for others to come," she said. "I'd like to see the adoption of the idea that if you're going to build a new playground, why not make it boundless?"

At Grady, the new playground will be an extension of the basketball court, with areas for younger and older children. All of Grady's 440 students will use the equipment.

Some of the students like Sarah come to Grady because the school is more accessible to wheelchairs than their assigned neighborhood school. These students will use the playground for weekly therapeutic recreation classes provided by the city of Tampa Parks and Recreation Department.

Busansky hopes the Grady playground will be finished next year, when Sarah starts second grade.

Plans include mirrors, aluminum pipe chimes, panels with sign language letters, a sand area and a spiral slide.

And, of course, swings for Sarah to reach new heights.

- Elisabeth Dyer can be reached at 226-3321 or edyer@sptimes.com

To donate, visit www.freedomplayground.org and click on contact us or mail a check to the Freedom Playground Foundation at P.O. Box 320295, Tampa, FL 33679. Fundraising is ongoing for Freedom Playground and Grady Elementary's playground. Specify Grady on checks.

[Last modified August 4, 2005, 08:43:14]