Thanks to a slo-pitch tournament fundraiser organized by her parents, community donations, and a grant from the provincial government, four-year-old Jordyn Borodawka will be able to use her neighbourhood playground this summer.
The young St. Albertan lives with congenital myasthenic syndrome, a neurological condition mainly characterized by muscle weakness. Among young children, the syndrome can also cause slower development. For Jordyn, living with the syndrome means she uses a ventilator to breathe and a feeding tube to eat.
Her small neighbourhood playground on Lodgepole Crescent was built in 2003 and features sand, a swing set, and a small climbing structure with a slide, none of which is accessible enough for her to use.
Given the playground's age, city council set aside $150,000 as part of the 2023 budget to replace it as part of the city's ongoing repair, maintain, replace (RMR) program. But, because the city's RMR program uses a "like-for-like" philosophy when it comes to replacing or repairing city assets, the Lodgepole playground wasn't going to be replaced with an accessible or more inclusive play structure.
Jordyn's parents, Matt and Kaitlyn, had a better idea.
“In February of 2023 we caught wind that the city was planning on re-building the Lodgepole park in the spring, and we immediately reached out to Variety Alberta to table the opportunity to help bring an inclusive park to our community,” Matt said. “After teaming up with Variety, we were able to intercept the project and propose our solution to go above and beyond a ‘like-for-like’ park replacement and build this park inclusive and accessible.”
Variety Alberta is a children's charity that advocates for and supports youngsters facing developmental, physical, emotional, or learning challenges. One of the charity's many programs is to help fundraise and design accessible and inclusive playgrounds.
Jana Hand, Variety's CEO, said in an email that the charity has supported the development of 13 inclusive playgrounds across the province since 2017.
“Our 2024 installs will be in Calgary, Airdrie, Edmonton and St. Albert,” Hand said. “Our goal is to support two to five school and/or community inclusive playground builds a year.”
With Variety's assistance, Matt said, the family and the city entered into a formal agreement that involved the Borodawkas and Variety raising $155,000 or more that the city could use to replace the Lodgepole playground with a fully-accessible play space.
The family reached their goal last month thanks to a $125,000 grant from the provincial government, just in time for the playground to be designed before the upcoming construction season.
“Having the Lodgepole park built inclusive, accessible and into more than a swing set and slide is going to bring joy to not only my daughter, but the many other children attending school, daycare, and living in Lacombe Park,” Matt said. “Playgrounds play a crucial part in building children’s physical, social, and intellectual skills, and this park will do just that regardless of physical or mental disabilities.”
Matt said since the design work is just getting underway, the family isn't entirely sure exactly what type of accessible features the new playground will have, although one guarantee is that it will have a hard rubber surface, which supports the use of the space for those mobility challenges better than sand or wood fibres.
Once built, the Lodgepole playground will be St. Albert's second fully accessible and inclusive playground, following the opening of the new Fountain Park playground in the summer of 2022.
Similarly to Lodgepole, the Fountain Park playground replacement was also an RMR project, and was initially going to be replaced with a "like-for-like" version. However, “administration opted to replace [it] with an accessible and inclusive play space area,” after receiving multiple requests from the public to replace the playground with an inclusive one, and a motion put forward by Coun. Natalie Joly, according to a What We Heard report published at the time.
The Fountain Park playground replacement's budget was $378,900.
Kristina Peter, a city planning manager, said over the past year city staff have embarked on a review of the RMR program to see if accessibility can be accounted for more thoroughly, although she wasn't able to provide any preliminary results or findings from administration's ongoing evaluation.
“In short, we are building accessibility considerations into all aspects of our planning and capital work, and residents will see the results of that as projects proceed,” Peter said.
Mayor Cathy Heron declined an interview request, with city spokesperson Cory Sinclair saying she “had nothing further to add” to the answers provided by city administration.
Both Coun. Natalie Joly and Coun. Wes Brodhead said they thought accessible designs, for playgrounds and in general, will only be guaranteed and prioritized in city development and redevelopment if accessibility is given higher standing in council's strategic plan.
The word "accessibility" does not appear at any point in council's 10-page strategic plan.
“It would have to be a priority above other priorities,” said Joly. “Ideally, we'd see funding from higher levels of government to make this a basic standard.”
“The disconnect is limited funding.”
Likewise, Brodhead said he thought adjusting the RMR program to replace assets with improved, specifically accessible standards, would likely have a “significant” impact on the city's annual budget each year.
“Having said that, we do have a policy that says that we need to move in that direction,” he said. “Whether there will be a change or not in the immediate term, I don't know.”
“There's a lot of demands on the RMR budget in particular.”
Brodhead said no matter what, the Borodawka family has ensured that the Lodgepole playground will remain accessible for generations to come.
St. Albert resident Katrina Breau, who serves as the president of the Edmonton-based non-profit Voices of Albertans with Disabilities (VAD), said she hopes the city takes inspiration from the family's perseverance.
“This is a perfect opportunity for us to move from words of empty promises to a point of action,” Breau said. “I truly would love to see our city embrace this opportunity to become fully accessible.”
“Our councillors shouldn't really miss out on this golden opportunity for setting an example for other communities moving forward.”
In an email, the city's supervisor of parks planning and stewardship, Manda Wilde, said the Lodgepole playground's “size, location, and supportive amenities” led administration to make the initial decision to not replace the playground with an accessible space. This was despite the city's 2021 Municipal Development Plan (MDP), and the 2018 Universal Access Plan (UAP), both stating the city will ensure all new development and redevelopment of city assets will be designed using accessible design principles, and despite replacing the Fountain Park playground with a fully accessible version the year before.
The MDP is the city's overarching document dictating how St. Albert is developed, redeveloped, and designed. It contains a list of policies surrounding accessibility, such as ensuring development and redevelopment complies with accessibility legislation or incorporating “universally accessible design principles when retrofitting city buildings, facilities, and infrastructure, where feasible.”
The MDP's accessibility policies were informed largely through the UAP, a 227-page report the city commissioned and published in 2018 that put forward a host of recommendations for how the city could be purposely designed to improve more accessibility for those with disabilities.
