Volunteers Make Playground a Reality for Autistic Children

Slithery slides and shifting sands, treasure tumbles and tick-tack-toe spinning bands—these are a few of the hundreds of pieces that a few hundred helping hands put together for hundreds of smiles and hours of fun to come.

Over 500 hands helped build Giant Steps school's first playground this month. The school, which caters to children suffering autism disorders, completed the effort with the help of their volunteers, students, the Radio Flyer company, and funding from from nonprofit playground builder KaBOOM! and Blue Cross And Blue Shield. Crews completed the work in two days.

Giant Steps began as a home school and moved into its current facility off Warrenville Road just over a year ago. So far they have set up a computer lab, sensory/motor rooms, dance/yoga areas and art and fitness equipment, but they did not have an on-campus area for outdoor play.

"We've wanted to utilize the outdoors for teaching for some time. It would be a dramatic help to our  students, whose sensory systems are dysregulated, meaning they fall outside of the conventionally accepted range of emotional responses," said Bridget O'Connor, executive director of Giant Steps.

O'Connor has dedicated her life to helping children with autism disorders reach their full potential.

With O'Connor's help, the therapeutic day school received an $80,000 Community-Build Playground Grant from KaBOOM! and Chicago-based Radio Flyer. The grant, combind with a matched grant from Blue Cross Blue Shield, helped get the project started.

KaBOOM! has organized more than 1,800, done-in-a-day, all-volunteer builds for communities in need. KaBOOM! also helps by pairing community leaders with funding partners who support their mission. In Giant Steps' case, Radio Flyer was the match for funding.

Robert Pasin, chief wagon officer for Radio Flyer, worked with KaBOOM! on a previous build and came to them looking to find a charity project for his company. KaBOOM! was looking to do a project in the Lisle area and Giant Steps was the natural choice.

The project began to come to life in June when siblings and parents of Giant Steps' students participated in a playground planning day to help design a playground that the students imagined. The playground would utilize, among many other pieces, lots of moving parts. 

"Our kids are constantly in motion. They interpret visually, not audibly. They have amazing peripheral vision, when they talk to you, they know everything happening around you. It is similar to being born with the gift of a professional athlete," said Christine Thornton Wiener, chairman of the board for Giant Steps.

Sliding, swinging, spinning, climbing and rocking are all incorporated into the playground. According to O'Connor, swings are especially important. 

Bill Metcalf, whose son Max, 11, has attended the school for three years, can attest to this.

"Max is a very active kid and could swing all day. We have a swing inside our home and he keeps going even after he's swung so high he'll hit is head on the 9-foot ceiling," Metcalf said.

Thanks to the efforts of 240 community and corporate volunteers, kids such as Max will be able to swing to their heart's content, right at school.

"I'm amazed at all the people with no experience building using such precise measurements to get this playground up," Metcalf said. "It reminds me of the old joke of 'some assembly required' but it's really a huge effort on everyone's part today."

Organized into teams by the stickers on name badges, volunteers got to work at 8:30 a.m. and finished just after 2 p.m. The work included not only building the playground, but building, sanding and staining benches and picnic tables from 2x4s, landscaping and painting projects. 

Ryan O'Leary of Duke Realty and Jim Plummer of Jones Lange Lasalle were on the Navistar Project Team for the day.

"We take our kids to the park on Sunday mornings, that's about as much experience as we have with playground equipment. It has been great experience helping with the build," Plummer said.

Both KaBOOM! and Radio Flyer agreed it was one of the most efficient, well-organized and well-supported builds that either company has ever seen.

During the ribbon cutting, students joined the volunteer workers for a parade featuring Radio Flyer wagons they'd decorated and song of gratitude at the end of the day.

"We are incredibly grateful to all volunteers for their hard work and also for the new relationships which this project has forged," said O'Connor.

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