Meeting in Modesto will help make Beyer Park playground an Awesome Spot

A public meeting in downtown Modesto on Wednesday evening should be, in a word, awesome.

Children will be given crayons and paper, play dough and Lego blocks to come up with their dream playground or pieces of playground equipment. Their ideas could be incorporated into an “inclusive” playground on which disabled and nondisabled children could play side by side.

The playground, dubbed The Awesome Spot by organizers, was approved by the City Council in March to be built at Beyer Community Park. The effort to build it has been spearheaded by Modesto-area resident Rachel Loredo, whose son, Tommy, was born with arthrogryposis, or contractures that limit joint movement.

She’s been working with city staffers and the Southern California-based nonprofit organization Shane’s Inspiration, which has agreed to create a conceptual design at no charge.

Wednesday’s is the first general meeting at which community members may give input on what they’d like at the playground – perhaps features they’ve seen at other inclusive playgrounds, Loredo said.

“Basically, Shane’s has said to let their imaginations run wild,” she said. “Mostly right now, we want to have their input on the design, like if there’s maybe a certain swing they’d love.” From one person, she heard about a swing on which parent and child can sit facing each other.

While the children dream and draw, adults at the meeting will talk about key features the playground should have to provide cognitive and vestibular stimulation, Loredo said.

“The biggest thing I want to stress: I’ve heard people say, ‘Rachel is working on a playground for special-needs children.’ No, I’m not,” Loredo said. “Able-bodied children will have blast at this playground, but so will my son in his wheelchair. I want to stress that it’s for everyone, even adults, because there are parents in wheelchairs, or elderly grandparents, or able-bodied siblings,” all of whom will be able to access the playground.

Through talks with Nathan Houx, the city’s parks project coordinator, a tentative fundraising goal of $750,000 to $1 million has been set to build the park, Loredo said. The project would be done through Modesto’s Park Partners Program, in which city staffers help organize and manage a project to completion but members of the community secure donations of materials and money and provide volunteer labor to install the project.

A city report from a couple of months back said fundraising is expected to take a year or two, meaning the playground could be done as early as summer 2017. Loredo said Monday that the fall of 2017 now appears a more reasonable goal.

“We have not launched fundraising because we want people to be able to see their park design first,” she said. Input from the community meeting and other sources, including social media, will be compiled and sent to Shane’s Inspiration staff members, who will do the conceptual design.

Loredo said she hopes to start fundraising in September, at a kickoff where the design will be unveiled and partnership packets will be distributed. In the meantime, a crowdfunding page has been established at www.gofundme.com/theawesomespot for people interested in making smaller donations, she said.

Already, she said, she’s encouraged by community support such as O’Dell Engineering of Modesto donating the land-survey service that Shane’s required. O’Dell has worked on inclusive playgrounds before, Loredo said, and will help run Wednesday’s meeting. The Century event and wedding venue also is donating its space for the meeting, she said.

This story was originally published May 16, 2016 at 4:06 PM with the headline "Meeting in Modesto will help make Beyer Park playground an Awesome Spot."