HAVE A BLAST: The newly opened Civic Park boasts junior and senior play apparatus and a safety surface. It's also wheelchair accessible. (Courtesy City of Vaughan)

Youthful fun knows no bounds at the city’s newest playground.

Located in Civic Park next to Vaughan’s city hall, the accessible facility, which features junior and senior play apparatus and a safety surface, officially opened recently.

A $15,000 donation by Lowe’s Canada helped make the playground a reality, Mayor Linda Jackson said in a statement.

“Families will really enjoy the fact that it’s all-accessible,” Maple Lowe’s store manager Peter Darcy said. “It’s got great ramp access. … Everything’s at the height for kids either in a wheelchair or standing so they don’t have to look up or down.

“And there’s some interactive signs going up, (including) a placard that’s got all the different letters in sign language, as well as one that’s got all the planets of the solar system.”

The day of the opening was a great one, Darcy said, with several dignitaries and lots of kids in attendance.

“I think as soon as the kids saw the barriers down, I’d say within about half an hour there was probably about 50 or 60 kids on the playground already,” he said. “Judging by the look on the kids’ faces, they were running around on the playground, they seemed to be having a good time.

“So I talked to some of the kids, just asking how they enjoyed it, and their words were: ‘It’s cool.’ That’s the best endorsement.”

Every time Lowe’s opens a new store, Darcy said, a donation is made back to the community. It’s something the company has done for about 60 years and continued in the six Canadian communities where new stores have opened.

Vaughan Today
In print: October 31, 2008, page 6
Online: November 4, 2008 [link]