Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, May 9, 1993                   TAG: 9305090031
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LON WAGNER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

AT ACCESSIBLE PARK, IT'S FAIR PLAY

The remarkable part is a playground 100 percent accessible to the disabled.

The ordinary is that 7-year-old Amanda Blevins, who has cerebral palsy, got to play in it.

"I know you're busy, but thanks," Ellen Wade, the girl's mother, told Susan Blevins, one of two Penn Forest Elementary PTA members who initiated the playground project. She glanced at her daughter, a first-grader at Penn Forest, playing in the sand. "This is what it's all about."

"There's her transportation," said Amanda's mother, pointing to a walker sitting next to the sandbox.

But Amanda could set it aside to get into the "sandbox" - a word that understates the size of this one - and crawl around because of the ramps that lead to the top of the wooden structure.

Dubbed "Freedom Playground," the entire play area at Penn Forest Elementary School in Roanoke County is fully accessible to the disabled. The only other playground in the United States that can make that claim is in Fort Worth, Texas.

From conception of the idea to Saturday's dedication ceremony, Freedom Playground took more than two years and $200,000. It has ramps, slides, ladders, a spiral slide, bells, turrets. Some nifty triangles attached to pulleys let children swing from one part of the structure to the other. The wood chips that are the structure's "bedding" are shredded in such a way that they seal when under pressure from a cane or a wheelchair.

The idea for the playground was launched in January 1991 by PTA members Blevins and Karen Shelton. After pushing for it, the two women quickly discovered they had undertaken a mammoth project.

"When we thought about embarking on this," Blevins said, "we thought, `How can we afford this?' "

Making the playground fully accessible to the disabled added $50,000 to its pricetag.

They asked the community for reinforcements, and got them. The contributors list is lengthy: 100 Pi Kappa Phi fraternity brothers from 20 colleges in 12 states showed up in October and built 90 percent of the playground; Pi Kappa Phi donated $15,000 in starter money; Concrete Ready Mix, Roanoke Cement Co. and Rockydale quarries donated supplies; the county School Board and the county parks and recreation department sponsored the construction, and so on.

Blevins said just the intensive labor donated by the fraternity members was a big contribution. Pi Kappa Phi's national philanthropy committee is called PUSH, People Understanding the Severely Handicapped.

Steve Fleck, a Virginia Commonwealth University sophomore, said he had a great time building the playground. He returned Saturday to get a look at the finished product.

Bill Hume, an architect of the playground, said one of the main goals of the project was to let children with disabilities play side-by-side with their classmates.

That's what Amanda Wade was doing Saturday.

"We've been in Roanoke 15 years, and once we had kids and once we had Amanda, we just didn't use the parks because there was nothing for her to do," Ellen Wade said.

Those days are over.