(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to "The Journal," I'm Steve Kendall.

The opportunity for children to play is something that we take for granted, but there can be barriers for some children.

Wood County Plays as an organization whose goal is to assist in removing those barriers by building what are called inclusive playgrounds.

We're joined by the group's Treasurer, Margie Harris, Margie, welcome to "The Journal," and thank you for coming on to talk about Wood County Plays.

- Thank you for having me, we're very excited.

- Yeah, and please talk about what Wood County Plays is, and then let's talk about, obviously, you have one of your inclusive playgrounds up and running, but talk about Wood County Plays and that organization and who's involved.

- Sure.

Well, we started as a small group of volunteers in the Summer of 2019.

I think we met for the very first time in July, and it was a number of us from the community that got together that knew that we needed to build and provide play space and playgrounds in our county that was inclusive.

We are made up of families.

We have occupational therapists, physical therapists, a speech therapist, just a number of community members that have a stake in this.

And we started off two years ago.

Well, 2019, actually, and went from there.

We did start in Perrysburg.

That was an area that we took a look at all Wood County, and there were a higher percentage of children in that area that required the inclusive playgrounds in order to play with others in their community.

So that's where we started.

- Yeah, and I think as I mentioned, we just assume, or we take for granted that kids can play on a playground.

Obviously, not every child has the same capabilities, faces different challenges, things of that nature.

So you talk about the park in Perrysburg, where did that idea come from?

I mean, did you know of other parks in other places, or this is kind of a first, obviously, for Wood County, and Northwest Ohio for all intents and purposes.

So, where did you find out, initially, about this idea?

How did it come to your group?

- Well, it started with a family that had tried to take their child to a local playground, and that child used a walker.

And of course, typical playgrounds have a lot of mulch, and sometimes curbing, and (mumbles), and it was not accessible for him to be able to get to that playground equipment.

So they did some research.

There is actually the first one in Northwest Ohio that I know of was built in Findlay, Ohio.

- Oh, okay, correct.

- And it's just right off of 75.

So that family went there and took a look at that playground and said, "We need one in Perrysburg."

So that's kind of the catalyst that started everything, and that's what pulled the other individuals in.

So when we were looking at playgrounds, our playground not only addresses the accessibility, it eliminates that mulch and that curbing that traditional playgrounds have, but it also gives children with sensory, and cognitive, and emotional disorders a safe place to play and to explore.

And that's what kids need at that age.

I mean, the important ways that children can explore the world, is to learn, and grow, and build relationships, and they do that by playing together.

And that's what it is.

It's not just the accessibility piece, but it is an actual inclusion.

You know, there's parks that have a, maybe a wheelchair swing in a certain area of that park, and they call that inclusive.

Well, it's not really because it is separated.

We look at providing the equipment all in one location, so that, you know, kids of all ages, and all abilities can play side-by-side.

- Oh, yeah.

And then that's an important point because, obviously, if you're isolated away from the other children that defeats the purpose that you just talked about, which is, being around other children, socializing, learning, that sort of thing.

Yeah, you talk about when you talk about those things, and I know that we look at mulch, and things of that nature on a playground as being to some degree safety factors, ease of maintenance, that kind of thing, what are some of the differences, as you looked at doing these parks?

So, what's different about those surfaces at an inclusive playground, versus the traditional playground that we're familiar with?

- Well, you know, that is what sets it apart.

An inclusive playground is that base, and of course it has to be the most expensive piece of the play ground, is that poured rubber surfacing, and there are layers that are placed, and I'm not a contractor, and we rely on professionals to work those details out for our committee, but there's a base laid that has somewhat of cushion underneath, and then there's a poured rubber surface poured on top, and that's what makes it accessible to any area.

We also looked at just ramping different pieces of equipment that allowed wheelchairs access to it.

We have a We-Go-Round, it's called a We-Go-Round, at the Perrysburg Playground, and it's like a merry-go-round, but a wheelchair can actually roll into that piece of equipment and there are seats, and things that they can enjoy, that spinning sensation along with the other kids.

So that's just one example of how we can bring it together so that they can play side-by-side.

So that poured rubber surface is definitely unique to the inclusive playgrounds.

- Yeah, and you mentioned the We-Go-Round, there are other things we'll talk about, I know you have proposals for this, the Bowling Green Park, why did you...

The location in Perrysburg is I believe Rotary Park, am I correct on that?

And why was that location chosen versus some of the other locations, 'cause Perrysburg obviously, has lots of parks, what made that one the location you wanted to use?

- Well, we did look at a lot of different locations in the Perrysburg area, and they do have many parks that would've made a wonderful space as well, but the Rotary Park is accessible from 475 and 75, there were reasons for the location as far as being in a central location in that area, and draws people in from all over the county, not just Perrysburg.

And the space was there, the Rotary had plans to build a wonderful, wonderful shelter house that has handicap-accessible bathrooms.

So that was really a big draw for us because if you've got kids playing that playground that need accessibility, you need accessible bathrooms as well.

So that was the reason I think that area was chosen, and like I said, we did look at others.

So from there Wood County... And that's why we're called Wood County Plays is because we want to bring those spaces at other areas in Wood County.

And then our second location was chosen to be Bowling Green.

One of the reasons the city of Bowling Green came to us and said, "We've seen what happened in Perrysburg, "we wanna build one here."

And I'm from Bowling Green, so I definitely want one here (laughs).

- Well, when we come back, let's talk more about the Bowling Green Park 'cause obviously if you go to the website, wcplays.org, there are depictions of what that park may look like, obviously subject to change, but we can talk about that.

- [Margie] Right.

- Back in just a moment with Margie Harris from Wood County Plays here on "The Journal" on WBGU-PBS.

Thank you for staying with us here on "The Journal" Our guest is Margie Harris, she's the board treasurer for Wood County Plays, an organization that has already constructed one inclusive playground in Perrysburg, and is working on another one for the city of Bowling Green.

Margie, talk about the Bowling Green Park, we touched on it just at the end of that previous segment.

What are the plans for that and location, that sort of thing?

And talk a little how people who aren't involved maybe can get involved in that Bowling Green proposal.

- Sure, well, the location that was chosen for the Bowling Green build is at Carter Park off of Campbell Hill Road.

If you know the area at all there's ball fields there, and it draws a lot of people in outside of the community, but one of the reasons it was chosen that the equipment there is a little bit older and it needed to be replaced.

And again, we looked at just like we did with Perrysburg, with where it was located and how it was accessible from the major highways and so forth, that made sense for it to go into the Carter Park location.

And the City of Bowling Green's been very great to work with and collaborate with in coming up with a plan, we do have some renderings, they are initial renderings.

We (chuckles) found just like with Perrysburg, when we made our initial plans, we had to make changes as time went on.

One, we raised more money, so it allowed us to add more equipment.

And if you look at any of the pictures of the Perrysburg playground, or any of the videos on our Facebook Page, or our website, you'll see there's a lot of exciting things there.

Things to climb, ride, spin, it's a very energetic playground.

I mean, there's lots of running, and jumping and so forth.

With the Perry...

The difference with Perry between Perrysburg and Bowling Green, is the Bowling Green is gonna have some of those exciting things too, but we wanted it to be a little bit different.

- Sure.

- You know, we're not - That far apart, we're 15 miles apart, so we didn't want something exactly the same.

We had a little bit smaller space to work with as far as overall square footage.

We went from over 15,000 square feet in Perrysburg, to down around 10, or 11,000 in Bowling green.

So we wanted to make it more imaginative play, and not, like I said, not to leave out those fun, exciting things.

We're, of all things, we're putting a hill in Bowling green, which (mumbles) been very flat.

We're putting a small incline that's still accessible from the top, and from the side, kids can climb.

There's transfer benches at the end of the slides, for kids that need assistance, and a lot of different things.

We are still in the planning stages for that, and we change things possibly if, you know, the fundraising goes well, and we can add more equipment in, and we have the space, we will.

One of the things that we had to consider when making the plans for this playground, is there's safe zones around each piece of equipment.

So we can't just crowd them all in, we need to have certain space around it.

One of the unique things in this playground, is going to be a wheelchair swing, and that has a safe zone around it.

Another unique piece, you'll see in some of the renderings, is a huge log and it looks like a (mumbles), but it will be accessible by wheelchair to go through.

So, that gives us the opportunity to add tactile things on the inside, and the outside.

Just a lot of different new things that kids are just gonna love.

- Yeah, yeah, and it was interesting 'cause I was looking at the references, the five-foot hill, obviously because, yeah, finding hills around here is a little difficult, especially in most parts of wood County.

But it was interesting the way it was described, which is, that it's accessible, it's an artificial turf surface, all of those things.

And then you look at the us and it says, "It's playground design for the 21st Century," which is they say, "We all think "we know what playgrounds are," but this is a whole different dimension for this, and yet at the same time, totally inclusive for everyone, not just designed for one group, or another group, totally inclusive.

When you're looking at that, and as you said, the development stage for this one, will there be new ideas that come along, other changes, things that have happened just since you talked about the initial setting for the Bowling Green Park?

- We have made some adjustments.

We may take out some of the ramping, we call it a ramp to nowhere.

You know, you don't want a ramp going up to something, and then it leads to nothing for (mumbles).

- Nothing there.

- So we have made a few changes already.

And again, these are just our initial renderings.

We don't really need to make any final decisions until probably mid-May, and that gives us an opportunity to fundraise a little more, and get the most that we can.

Of course, you know, with everything else these days, the price has gone up for everything.

- Sure.

- Perrysburg, we raised over $800,000 to build that space.

We had a lot of expensive equipment.

The community really rallied behind us.

If we were to build that park today, it would be over, I think they told us $1.1 million.

- Wow.

- So we knew those prices have really skyrocketed, and we want to be able to put as much as we can in the Bowling Green space as well, but it's gonna take some hard work from our committee, from our community, and the Bowling Green community already has just really rallied behind us.

There's people have come to us, "We wanna help do something, we wanna..." You know, I had a family come to us and say, "We wanna do a concert.

"My family is part of a band, "can we put on a concert and raise money?"

And we're like, "Sure, (chuckles) go right ahead."

But we do have some things going on right now.

One is called, Penny Wars, and it's between the Bowling Green school system, and the Otsego school system, where the kids are bringing in change, and throwing it in, and there's a contest between those two school districts.

So that's exciting and fun for the kids, and it really brings in the kids to help fundraise.

You know, that they're the ones that are gonna play there.

We want them to have a part in it.

The Rotary Club is putting on Piano Wars, and the funds that they raise will be going to the inclusive playground.

We also have our second annual Duck Drop.

We did this in Perrysburg, and it was in the midst of COVID.

So we could not have the community actually come out, but it was a way for them to give, and we did live stream it, so (chuckles) we were able to see it.

This year, we are going to have the second annual Duck Drop, and that is April 23rd.

That will be at Carter Park, in the playground area.

We've already almost sold out of our ducks.

We had 2,500 ducks that sold out, we got 500 more in, and we're almost sold out of those as well.

So along with that, we have a 3K Relay going on in the park that day with sponsors and relay teams, and that relay really is inclusive as well.

You know, we're encouraging, not just runners, but walkers, you know, if you wanna come out, and participate, just visit our Facebook Page, or our website.

There's information on there, how to participate in those.

You might be able to get a few more ducks if you hurry.

But the relay will be a fun event as well.

- Yeah, when we come back, we can talk more out about each of those events, because, obviously, they're each unique, but I know when you look online, yes, you can purchase the ducks online, and purchase them in batches too.

It's not just one or two, you can get larger amounts.

We come back, we're gonna talk more about Wood County Plays with Margie Harris from that organization here on "The Journal."

Thank you for staying with us here on The Journal.

Our guest is Margie Harris from Wood County Plays, an organization that has already built inclusive playground, and Perrysburg is working on one for Bowling Green.

In the last segment, you touched on one of the events, and I know that you talked about the relay, and I noticed it was called the Toothbrush Trio Relay in April 23rd in Carter Park.

So, what's the connection, what's the hook with the toothbrush?

I'm intrigued by that, I guess.

- Okay, one of our community partners is Dr. Clayson.

She's a dentist here in town, and she is very passionate about, and her staff as well, passionate about helping us build this playground in Bowling Green.

So she had come up with this idea of having the 3K Relay.

There'll be three team members, and as I said, you can walk it, you can run it.

I'm actually... My husband and I are going to push our daughter in her stroller, her wheelchair for one of the legs.

So, anybody's welcome to come and sign up.

That sign up is on our website.

But the toothbrush idea, the toothbrush is actually the baton that you're going to hand off to next leg.

So there'll be, like, 1K each, and the Baton is the toothbrush - The toothbrush, okay.

- That's how the name came.

- Well that's a-- - And we're really excited - About that.

- Yeah, that's really cool, that's really cool.

Now, we'll get back to the Rubber Ducks.

Now I know you also on, I believe it's April 28th, which sounds a long ways off, but all of these dates are coming up fairly quickly.

Simpson Garden Park Building, there's an event there too, which is sounds pretty exciting as well, and also very, very tactile in it's own way.

So talk about, I guess it's called the Pallet Party and Window Painting.

That event.

- I'm pretty involved in that one.

Becky Lobs has art sight here in Bowling Green, and she is a retired art teacher from Bowling Green High School, and she has agreed to help me do this fundraiser.

It's at Simpson Garden Park, which is a beautiful park in our area, in the building, and we will be painting vintage windows.

So there are...

It is a limited number of tickets available.

You can register on our Facebook, or website as well, but we're really excited about that because it is something a little different, and you really have something beautiful to take home.

- Yeah, yeah, and these are all very unique ideas for this kind of event.

And as you've mentioned earlier, you've not had a shortage of people wanting to get involved, but it's really easy.

I mean, you can simply, if you go to the website and look at woodcountyplays.org, or your Facebook Page, all the information's available for each of those events, and the activities that you're putting on.

What you've done with the playground in Perrysburg, and the proposed one in Bowling Green.

If people want to get involved, obviously there's contact information.

You're obviously welcoming people to call you, contact you, email, whatever, to say, "How can I help?"

And talk a little bit of that 'cause you're open to almost, to everyone who wants to get involved.

- Right, we have links on both the Facebook, and the webpage on how to...

If you just wanna give a donation, that's fine.

We have PayPal set up online, so that's very easy to do.

And not just only, you know, monetary donations, we will be asking the community to help with the actual build of the playground.

In Perrys-- - That's what I was gonna ask.

I'm glad you anticipated, that go right ahead, yeah.

- We will be doing that.

At this point, we don't have any exact date.

Again, we hope to break ground with the groundwork the first part of July, if all goes well, and then we will have a community build in September, probably earlier in September.

And what that community build involves, is a lot of volunteers, and it is pretty structured.

As you can imagine, we're building playground equipment that has to be done just right.

And we have the professionals there to help us, but there's a lot of manual labor that goes along with, and just like in Perrysburg we had 50 volunteers for each shift of that three days, and it took us three days.

If you've been to the Perrysburg playground, and I think back, and I look back at the picture, and I think, how did we do that in three days?

- In three days.

- But (mumbles) it was a very organized build, and we hope to do the same here in Bowling Green.

So come, you know, the end of Summer, we'll have information out on how you can volunteer to be on that community build.

- [Steve] Yeah, well-- - Well as probably some more fundraisers I'm sure.

- Sure, oh, absolutely.

Well, and as you said though, you don't have to be a professional playground assembly person, because there's lots of other things you can assist with, and someone's there to, sort of, oversee this construction, 'cause you said, "This has to be done exactly correctly, "so that it's perfectly safe and functional, "and long lasting."

So, even if you're not good with a crescent wrench, or a hammer, there are gonna be things for you to do there.

Talk a little about too, you know, how simple it is for people to get in touch with your organization, because obviously, you've talked about the website, you've talked about Facebook, but you encourage as many people as you want to, to get involved with this.

- We do, we... All of our steering committee is local.

You know, we're all around.

You'll see my face all around Bowling Green and whether you want to or not, because I'm out and about, but it is.

And through the website, that's probably the easiest place to get ahold of us.

There's an email there, send us an email and we try and respond as quickly as possible.

Also message us through the Facebook Page.

That we have various committee members that will watch that and try and answer questions as quickly as we can.

- Yeah, okay.

- So-- - Yeah, is there anything, any last word, anything that we haven't touched on, you wanna bring forward?

If not, it's very simple wcplays.org, and then obviously you can find you on Facebook very easily as well.

- And I really do encourage everyone to go to the Facebook Page, and the website, so that you can actually see, and, you know, "A picture's worth a thousand words," as they say, you know?

If you can see those kids, the smile on their face, the excitement, and just everything about it.

It really, you know, touches your heart when you see that.

And we are very excited for this project, and we really wanna make this happen this Summer.

- Right, right.

And it comes at, besides the inclusive part of it too, it comes at a good time when kids need to be back out, and being with each other.

So, I think that's a very important thing too.

It's, yeah, it fits a lot of different needs that are out there.

So, Margie Harris from Wood County Plays, thank you so much for being here, and we'll look forward to being in touch with you as this rolls out during the Summer, and then into the fall, as the Bowling Green inclusive play area becomes a reality as well.

So, thank you so much for being here.

- Thank you for having me.

- And you can check us out at wbgu.org, and, of course, you can watch us every Thursday night at 8:00 PM here on WBGU PBS.

We'll see you again next time.

Good night and good luck.

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