NORWALK, Ohio — A community in northwest Ohio has come together to build a park where everyone can play.
McGuan Park in Norwalk is now home to the nation’s first wheelchair-accessible BMX pump track.
“In our town, we didn’t have a swing, we didn’t have anything for any kid to do and it just wasn’t fair,” said Laura Chase, whose daughter had health issues and often had to sit out while other children played due to a lack of accessible playground equipment.
Chase’s daughter Willomina died in 2011 at age 2.
“I just thought even if a swing were available, they weren’t sitting on the sidelines watching everybody else play. And to see this is just amazing,” Chase said.
Chase is just one of the community members in Norwalk who pushed for the city to build an accessible park.
The city looked to 8-year-old Travis Hipp Jr., who uses a motorized wheelchair, for ideas when it set out to create a park where all kids could play.
“Maybe just a whole bunch of stuff that wheelchair kids could do. And other kids, not just for wheelchair kids,” said Hipp.
The McGuan Park renovation cost $450,000. While $150,000 came from a federal grant, the community came together to raise the rest.
“I think that that is actually pretty awesome, and smart,” said Hipp.
The park includes a jungle gym, mini zip line and all sorts of swings. But perhaps the most notable part of the park is the wheelchair-accessible BMX pump track. It’s the only one of its kind in the nation.
“It’s unbelievable when everything finally got built, the amount of kids that were down here at 7 a.m.,” said Jason Holmer, who runs Norwalk BMX.
Both tracks were designed by Tom Ritz, who has designed several Olympic pump tracks.
To Hipp, it’s about much more than a brand new park; it’s about making sure kids of all abilities feel like they belong.
“I know there are other kids like me that have disabilities like me that feel like okay, I can’t do this, I can’t do that. A whole bunch of people can do this, but I can’t do that,” Hipp said. “Which makes them feel like sometimes they’re kinda useless, right? But I just want every kid that’s watching this to know that you are special in your own way. Everything that you do matters.”
He said he hopes other communities will build similar parks.
