New Year's Eve fund-raiser in Sun Prairie a success

Daily Reporter (Milwaukee), Jan 3, 2007 by Paul Snyder

New Year's Eve at the Prairie Athletic Club in Sun Prairie was certainly a boisterous affair.

Kids indulged themselves with basketball, swimming, football drills, mini golf, hat making, face painting and runs through an inflatable obstacle course while their parents simultaneously kept an eye on them and discussed the reason for all the commotion - Firemen's Park in the Prairie.

The park, which has been in planning since the early part of 2006, is the brainchild of a group of Sun Prairie residents intent on giving city kids a playground that's both almost entirely handicapped accessible and almost entirely based on the kids' designs.

Sunday night's event, "One Night, One Dream," was another push in the group's efforts to raise about $145,000, and members say it was a successful evening.

"About 180 families attended, and in addition to their donations, we've also been fortunate to receive contributions from big and small businesses around the city," said Rebecca Ketelsen, one of the effort's leaders. "No one from State Farm was able to attend the event, but they contributed $500, which was very nice, and almost every entertainer Sunday donated their time to the event."

Anita Holcomb, the group's leader, said that preliminary totals from the event amounted to about $6,000 and that more fund-raising events would be on the way in the next few months.

"The response has been very positive," she said.

Handicapped accessibleKetelsen said a lot of the upfront costs will go toward making the park entirely handicapped accessible, and that the cost of lining the playground with rubber chips will be almost $40,000 alone.

"The rubber chips are necessary so that wheelchairs can move around the playground without getting stuck," she said. "It's a sizeable cost, but the nice thing about them is that they last 10 years - it's not something we'll have to replace every one or two years."

And slides, a two-story pirate ship with ramps and even the playground's swings would also all be wheelchair accessible.

But Holcomb pointed out that the 17,000-square-foot playground isn't solely for handicapped children, either.

"It's for kids of all abilities, and from ages 2 to 12," she said. "That's obviously a lot more than the typical 2- through 5-age range, and there's no other park in the state that offers as much in terms of accessibility."

Leathers & Associates, an Ithica, N.Y.-based architectural firm, was hired to help design the park. Ketelsen said the company has a reputation for helping communities build "dream parks" but that its work on parks in Monona, Fitchburg and Deerfield also proved to be a major selling point. Leathers also took on some interesting consultants in the process.

"In April, they went to every elementary school in the city -- public or private -- and asked kids to design what they wanted in the park," Ketelsen said. "They took it from there.

"And, really, it's the reason the park has something called 'the ice cream bouncing alien spaceship sundae.' Only a kid would think of that."

Older kids involvedBut elementary school students aren't the only ones involved in the process. Middle school students decided on the playground moniker and logo, and high school kids will add murals and some maintenance work to the finished product.

"The community is truly involved at all levels," Ketelsen said, adding that no help has come from the city, and the entire effort is strictly volunteer-based.

Even construction.

Ketelsen said that two architects will be on hand during the five- day construction process and that 1,000 volunteers will be needed to build the playground. Ten skilled laborers will captain groups of 100, and she said that if someone is willing to help in any facet, they're more than welcome.

"If you can hold a hammer, help carry supplies, supply refreshments, pound a nail -- we can use you," she said. "We've already enlisted 500 volunteers."

Holcomb said if all the funds can be raised by May, the group hopes to have its five-day build then, but failing that, it will still definitely be constructed sometime this year.

She added that the group is still accepting donations of money, materials and time and that the necessary contact information can be found at the group's Web site.