Port Elgin, N.B. builds accessible playground through community effort

Students at Port Elgin Regional School in New Brunswick have a new accessible playground that all students can enjoy thanks to a community effort.

Principal Christoph Becker says the idea for an accessible playground was born when he saw a video of a young student struggling.

“We started to think about one structure we could buy that she could access, then actually her parents made a video, and that video was shown to the staff and after that the momentum just became unreal, Becker said. “Because these kids are with us for 9 years it becomes personal and when it became personal, I had 3 EAs that started doing incredible stuff.”

Chris Morrison was among the education assistants who helped to raise over half a million dollars to build the playground. She said the playground wouldn’t be there without the support of the community and its businesses.

“We’ve had so much community support starting with our Botsford and Cape Tormentine Harbour Authority with coming up with 100,000 dollars which really sent the gears in motion,” Morrison said.

Even fifth grader Arabella McGraw pitched in.

“I was out in front of my driveway with a table and stuck up a sign, to try to get people to buy my tickets,” Arabella said.

“The kids did a great job and a lot of them were very dedicated,” said EA Jenn Abbott. “We even had kids that have left here and moved onto high school that came back over the past few years to help us out.”

Morrison said the playground is “beyond her wildest imagination.”

Seven-year-old Amara Noonan said the new playground is “better than ever.”

“It’s just like a new, whole experience,” Noonan said. “I felt so happy that I could Ka-boom into little bits of Ka-booms.”