Park to feature wheelchair swing

Equipment arriving midAugust, then will be installed

People who rely on wheelchairs to move around will get a chance to enjoy using a special swing that’s coming soon to Madison Township Park.

A wheelchair swing for the park playground has been purchased by the Madison Joint Recreation District Board.

The swing consists of a compartment where a person in a wheelchair is locked in securely. Another person then can be positioned to the side or rear to push and propel the equipment into a swinging motion.

“We’ve already ordered the swing, and it should arrive by around mid-August,” said Max Sorensen, chairman of the rec board’s Light up the Park Subcommittee.

Sorensen anticipates that the wheelchair swing will be installed at the park, located at Hubbard and Lake roads, soon after it’s delivered.

The swing is being purchased for about $3,500,

Sorensen said. Madison Kiwanis Club recently donated $550 toward that acquisition.

Plans call for it to be attached to its own frame, rather than becoming part of the playground’s traditional swing set.

When the swing is set up and becomes available for use, it will fulfill a goal which was set by the origi

nal Light up the Park Committee about three years ago.

At that time, the committee was an independent group consisting of bar and restaurant owners in Madison Township, as well as some community-minded citizens.

Sorensen, a f ounding member of the committee, also owns the Wagon Wheel Restaurant and Max’s Carryout, which are based just across the street from Madison Township Park on Hubbard Road.

In the midst of structural changes in the Light up the Park panel, Sorensen never lost sight of the wheelchair swing.

The idea to add a wheelchair swing to the park came from a customer at Sorensen’s eatery.

“So I started researching it, and looking at different (wheelchair swings),” Sorensen said.

Over the past 10 years, the Light up the Park Committee has become best known for sponsoring an

annual Family Fun Day and fireworks display. The 2021 edition of the event was held on July 24.

However, the group also has contributed money, and secured donations of materials and labor, to make other improvements at Madison Township Park.

In 2019, the committee ended its run as an independent panel, and instead became a subcommittee of the Madison Joint Recreation District Board.

Sorensen, Terri Wagoner and Tim Sizemore all had

served simultaneously on the stand-alone committee and the Madison rec board. All three still are members of the rec board and its Light up the Park Subcommittee.

In the midst of structural changes in the Light up the Park panel, Sorensen never lost sight of the wheelchair swing.

“It’s been about a threeyear project, getting the money available and finding the right (wheelchair swing), and so we’re almost there,” he said.