FUN IN A BOX
Traveling ‘playground’ helps kids of all abilities have fun together
They call it the world’s first traveling accessible playground, and they’re starting to let people play with it.
Find Some Flow, a tiny Bridgeville nonprofit run since early 2015 by Ian Neumaier and his girlfriend, Nicole Barsak, is all about bringing people together through play, so they invent and share playground games and equipment that everyone can use, regardless of ability or disability.
Its new rolling locker is filled with the games and equipment that they and their supporters have developed for inclusive play and educational materials to help children and parents use it, and they’ve begun to show it off. Earlier this month, they took the locker to a “wheelchair wash” event at UPMC Mercy, and they plan to display it during Sunday’s Open Streets Pittsburgh event, which stretches over city streets from Downtown and across the North Side to the West End (openstreetspgh.org). They are to be set up in Allegheny Commons, at West Ohio Street and Ridge Avenue, from 9 a.m. to about 1 p.m., and they welcome volunteers to help.
Mr. Neumaier hopes that the locker will enable some fun and some problem-solving and raise awareness about the issues people with disabilities and abilities face in playing together.
“The broad idea is that we begin to modify folks’ thinking,” says Mr. Neumaier, who works as an athletic trainer. As he explains, able-bodied children might have a hard time knowing if and how to play with children with disabilities. Their parents may not even want them to, fearing that their children might offend or even hurt the other kids. The locker is meant to help break the ice and break down barriers.
Not only are there educational fliers inside that people can take home, but also the outside is covered with tips, including a graphic of a bear that teaches people how to ask in American Sign Language, “Would you like to play with me?”
As Mr. Neumaier puts it, “The important thing to do is ask.”
The locker holds nine kinetic games, including StoneHenge, for which players collect pieces, build with them, and then compete to defend and destroy them. There’s even a set of rules for that written in Braille. They plan to add some quieter games, too.
The locker was part of why Find Some Flow won a $1,000 grant from Awesome Pittsburgh earlier this summer. The group also raised more than $2,000 for the project through gofundme.com.
The locker was built with donated and recycled materials by Eagle Scout J.T. Nicholas of Troop 238, who lives in Mt. Lebanon. In early June, it was set up at North Fayette
Community Center in Donaldson Park, but it wasn’t quite complete. Mr. Neumaier and Ms. Barsak, a nurse, have been moving it around using a rented vehicle and trailer.
Eventually, they’d like to place permanent lockers like this at playgrounds around the region.
“I’d love to see it everywhere,” says Matt Berwick, who is student success coordinator-disability services at Point Park University. He’s one of several supporters and accessibility advocates who helped plan and design the locker. In fact, the first sketches were done in his office.
“I think it’s fantastic,” he says. “Hopefully people buy into the idea, and it turns into something that’s not an anomaly.”
Learn more at findsomeflow.com.