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An 11-year-old has collected $30,600 so disabled children can also enjoy an Oldsmar park. After less than a year, she is close to her fundraising target.
By CHRISTINE GRAEF
© St. Petersburg Times, published November 22, 2000
OLDSMAR -- Ryan McCullers is close to achieving her goal.
Last March, the 11-year-old approached the City Council with an ambitious plan for a playground that she had designed for handicapped children. City officials unanimously approved the idea and left it to Ryan to raise the funds.
With the help of her mother, Sherri, Ryan now has raised $30,600 for the Ryan's Hope Project. The latest boost came Tuesday when Clearwater Mattress presented Ryan with a check for $10,000 in a noontime ceremony.
"It's just overwhelming what a take-charge little girl she is," Clearwater Mattress president Mel Jones said. "As Ryan explained it to me, you don't think about the disabled children sitting there and not being able to play on the playground equipment."
As planned, the money will be spent on the purchase of handicapped-accessible equipment for a playground. Ryan said she would like to see it placed in Friendship Playground in R.E. Olds Park, where she sees "a lot of children playing."
It was while playing at Friendship Playground last spring that Ryan, a fifth-grader at Oldsmar Christian School, first thought of the idea for handicapped-accessible equipment.
"There is playground stuff there, swings and a slide, but there was no place for handicapped kids to play," she said.
After the City Council approved her idea, Ryan presented it to the Parks and Recreational Advisory Board, which recommended approval in July.
"As she gets closer to the goal, we'll decide where to place it," said Oldsmar Recreation Director Lynn Rives.
Rives said R.E. Olds Park is a good suggestion. There are only two other parks with playground equipment in the city, Canal Park on Tampa Road and Sheffield Park on Cutty Bay. Neither has equipment accessible to the handicapped.
Ryan chose equipment from a GameTime catalog, a company that makes playground equipment.
"I picked out a swing, an enclosed merry-go-round, a maze made up of educational panels, a sandbox and a picnic table that has room for wheelchairs," Ryan said.
She estimates the equipment she has chosen will cost about $40,000. The goal is in sight, she said, but will depend on donations and possibly future fundraisers.
"She started out with a couple of dollars," Sherri McCullers said. "Then she raised about $8,000 with a "jail and bail' last August."
More than 23 residents and employees were rounded up and placed in a makeshift holding cell near the reception desk at City Hall. Solicitations were also sent to about 1,300 businesses in the city stating, "One day while playing at Friendship Playground in R.E. Olds Park, I saw other kids who were in wheelchairs having to sit and watch while all the other kids were having fun. I do not think this is fair."
One of those letters ended up on Jones' desk, where he read it, put it in a pile and then went back and reread it.
"My first reaction was, is this for real?" Jones said. Then he called Ryan, got some additional information and decided that he would be happy to help.
Others have had similar reactions. A matching grant from the Allegheny Franciscan Foundation in Clearwater will bring in an additional $5,000, Sherri McCullers said. About half of that is already in the bank.
"I'm totally amazed with her," Rives said. "I think Ryan's doing a fantastic job. Other children need to take a look and think about this."
- Staff writer Christine Graef can be reached at (727) 445-4229 or graef@sptimes.com.