• See a history of Shane’s Inspiration below
[img]1025|left|Susan M. Ottalini||no_popup[/img]This morning, the Los Angeles Dept. of Parks and Recreation will dedicate one of the area’s most expensive and beautiful playgrounds in Glen Alla Park, Marina del Rey.
Called Shane’s Inspiration (see shanesinspiration.org), it is described as an amazing gift “through the creation of an environment where all children can play together at the highest level of their ability.”
Shane’s Inspiration is an area to play with fully accessible, sensory-rich and physically challenging equipment. More importantly, this playground gives all children, with or without disabilities, a place to play and learn from each other. A great place for kids with all sorts of skills, abilities and capabilities to have fun.
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Funded through the 1975 Quimby Act monies (where local developers pay fees or donate land to build parks within two miles of their projects), the Parks and Recreation Board allotted $2.286 million for the venture in 2004. The playground, the tennis courts and paddleball courts already have been upgraded. More improvements are planned for the other park areas next year, including reseeding and replacing the restroom.
The playground itself cost about $800,000, according to a source at Shane’s Inspiration. The park is only 4.8 acres, and the new play area increases the children’s playground by 5 percent. The original park was built in the 1970s, merely a slide, swings and a lot trees. (All trees have been preserved in this project.) The new installation is a well thought-out, nautically themed, musical achievement.
The main structure features three towering blue mast-like umbrellas covering a blue metal boat. A huge proud pelican watches over the bow. Wheelchair-accessible ramps lead you up into the hull where you can find a rotating rain gauge, drums, musical knobs to turn, slides, stairs and ropes to climb down to the rubber-coated flooring at ground level.
Inspecting the Foundation
The rubber is made from recycled tires, colored and applied painstakingly in two layers by workers on their hands and knees over a week’s time. It is very blue and water like as a school of fish swim through the design. Mushroom toadstools track along the outside near the plastic rocking lifeboat and hanging blue metal circle swings, invite the little ones to drift slowly but uncontrollably, challenging their skills of balance while holding onto the unpredictable contraptions.
This is the 35th playground of its kind built by the Shane’s Inspiration organization, which has 67 more such facilities in development all over the world. The playgrounds can cost anywhere from $100,000 to $1.5 million. No. 34 was opened in Vancouver, Canada, last Saturday. Three projects were in conjunction with the 2010 Olympics and Para-Olympic Games in Canada. They are developing playgrounds in Mexico, Sweden and India according to Brad Thornton, Director of Project Development.
The 11 a.m. dedication ceremony was to be hosted by Los Angeles City Councilman Bill Rosendahl, but the park already was unofficially christened by the children over Thanksgiving. “Everyday I would walk by it, and I just couldn’t wait any longer,” said one little four-year-old I ran into that day.
Gleefully he climbed up and slid back down the massive rock-climbing sculpture at the back of the park, followed by his tinier still little sister.
The three massive concrete works of art were designed by InterPlay Design Inc’s Tom Arie Donch. His Vallejo company has created nearly 500 sculptures in play environments in 21 states throughout North America.
He described the process to me in September when the three 8- to 14-ton pieces were delivered, unveiled and installed.
Once This Area Was Quiet
“They are made with rebar,” he said, and theyhave a lot of steel in them. Concrete is applied to the steel and lath, and then sculpted, all freeform. No molds are involved, just building the sculptures from scratch and concrete.”
The amazing black, 20-foot Humpback Whale sits in the giant sandpit and keeps the massive swimming Turtle sculpture company. The Turtle, in any other environment, might have been a water fountain, according to Arie Donch, but here the designers decided to cover the “discovery pool” with sand. The Rock Climbing Wall is at least four feet high and features a grassy turf in front for the kids to slide down.
Other wonderfully whimsical features are the large rock abacus, the musical “pipe-bell” toy and swings, some with special plastic seats for really little children.
I have lived in this area over 14 years, and this was a park that was used rarely on the weekends and mornings by local children. I am looking forward to it becoming constantly filled with their laughter, music and screams of joy as they slip down the two long slides, front and center in this newest and most fabulous addition to our community.
To quote from the Shane’s Inspiration website, “This is not just another playground…It is a symbol of hope and love, and a beacon of joy for thousands of children in our city.”
History of Shane’s Inspiration
In 1997, Catherine Curry-Williams and Scott Williams lost their son, Shane Alexander, to Spinal Muscular Atrophy (Type I: Werdnig-Hoffman Disease) only a few weeks after his birth. Had Shane lived, he would have spent his life in a wheelchair. Because of a physical disability, Shane would have been denied one of the most fundamental rights of childhood: the right to play independently with friends and family at neighborhood and school playgrounds. This realization encouraged the Williams and family friend Tiffany Harris to turn a tragedy into a vision that resulted in Shane's Inspiration… a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the lives of children with disabilities.
In 1998, Shane's Inspiration gave a gift to thousands of Los Angeles children through the creation of an environment where all children can play together at the highest level of their ability. With the support of visionary community leaders, Shane's Inspiration created the first Universally Accessible Playground in the Western United States and the largest in the nation: “Shane's Inspiration.” Located in Griffith Park, “Shane’s Inspiration” provides two acres of fully accessible, sensory-rich and physically challenging equipment.
More importantly, this playground gives children with disabilities and children without the opportunity to play with and learn from each other, thus increasing awareness and acceptance. Since the opening of our flagship playground, Shane’s Inspiration has helped raise millions of dollars to develop over 40 Universally Accessible Playground projects throughout Southern California and as far away as Sri Lanka. We also reach over 2,600 children each year through transportation, education and community outreach programs.
Ms. Ottalini, a journalist, video editor and photographer in the Marina del Rey area, may be contacted at susan.ottalin@yahoo.com
