Kiwanis Adventure Playground (KAP)

WE WOULD LIKE TO THANK HYDRO OTTAWA FOR HELPING MAKE OUR ACCESSIBLE SWAY-FUN SWING POSSIBLE.

KAP - A Fantastic Community Project Comes To Life

When our Kiwanis Club decided to build a playground in Orleans, community involvement was our key objective, so we put out as invitation to 60 children to take part in a design workshop to help decide what play elements we needed. After all, who best to consult than the children who will enjoy the facility for years to come.

From that adventure we learned that the kids wanted a huge ship and a tall Parliament style tower with gigantic slides to offer the best play while reflecting our local community and National Capital city.

The mega playground is 10 times the size of any typical community play structure and is located at the Cumberland Millennium Sports Park, 2135 Trim Road. The park is specifically targeted for children ages two to 12 of all abilities.

And best of all, our community volunteered, over 150 friends and neighbors, to actually build the structure and complete the safe surfaces.

And we're not done yet!

Super duper playground in the works for the east end

By Fred Sherwin
Orléans Online

A local service club is hoping to bring a super duper playground to the east end with the community’s support.

The Orleans Kiwanis Club has been toying with the idea of building a $1 million playground in the east end for the last two years, ever since past president Harley Bloom saw a similar project in Boca Raton, Florida.

'When I saw what they had in Boca Raton I was just blown away,' recalls Bloom.'Then when I tried to ask one of the guys down there about the place he immediately grabbed me by the arm and started showing me around. The amount of community pride in the place was unbelievable.”

What Bloom got an impromptu tour of that day was one of 1,600 community playgrounds built by volunteers.

The project managing company takes an interactive approach to building playgrounds that involves the local community in the design, organization, and construction of projects.

At the core of every project is a firm belief in volunteerism and the need to provide children with facilities that promote exercise, healthy living and using their imaginations.

The actual cost of the community playgrounds is hard to pin down because a lot of the work and materials are donated.

Bloom estimates the cost of the playground planned for the east end will be about $1 million, as much as a third of which would be in the form of corporate sponsorships and donated goods and services.

Nearly half of the figure, or $400,000, may end up coming out of the Cumberland Legacy Fund. The Kiwanis have an agreement in principal with the Legacy Fund commitee to have the remaining money in the fund applied to the project.

The $400,000 represents the share of the Legacy Fund allotted to the suburban portion of the former municipality. While the Legacy Fund committee is made up of representatives from the various community associations, the final say on whether or not the money will be spent on the community playground project will be up to each individual association.

'The Legacy Fund money would be a huge step for us. It would advance the project by about five years,' says Bloom. 'It would give us immediate credibility so that we can go out and start talking to other groups and corporations to get behind it as well.”

Although the Kiwanis are not looking for any direct funding from the city, they are hoping the city will donate about an acre of land on which they can build.

The first step after a location has been found and the money has been raised, will be to get local kids involved in designing the playground.

Depending on what the kids want, the playground will likely be a combination of wooden play structures, a water spray area and a collection of storefronts similar to what they have in the Children’s Museum at the Museum of Civilization in Hull only built to withstand the elements.

'It will be an absolutely awesome opportunity for everyone involved,' says Bloom. 'It’s not just a playground, it’s a community building opportunity that will bring people together from all walks of life and from across the entire community.'

To find out more about the Kiwanis playground project go to www.orleanskiwanis.com.