MHR students team with Kalai to raise money for playground
A benefit concert featuring Kalai raised more than $2,000 to help the Whittier Center build a playground that will be completely accessible to disabled children.
A management and human resources class project led a group of students to pursue a project that would raise money for what they called a worthy cause, in which the students donated all the proceeds from the project to the Whittier Center, located at 290 N. 400 East in Logan to build a playground for able and disabled kids alike.
“We could see how we could use our business skills to raise money for a worthy cause,” said Candace Whitley, senior in family consumer and human development and group member. “We were able to all come together as a team and raise money with thanks to Kalai and our sponsors.”
The student group sold more than 600 hundred tickets to the benefit concert, which enabled them to break their initial goal of being able to donate $2,000 to the center’s playground.
“We broke our goal tonight,” said Cody Neville, senior in management and human resources and group member. “Kalai decreased his costs to help with the benefits. We picked this project because we didn’t want to limit ourselves, and I don’t think we did.”
Kendall Andelin, executive director of the Whittier Center, said the group is still short of the money they need to build the much-needed playground and needs help from students like this MHR class group to build the playground.
“When we set out to build this playground, we found the ADA requirements for playgrounds are really lax,” Andelin said. “Supposedly wood chips are wheelchair accessible. We said we are going to raise the bar, and so we flew out a disability expert and went to the children for our ideas. We need help with donations to get this playground built, and we need help actually building the playground. Students can help in both of those areas.”
Andelin said one of the major goals of the project is to make a playground not just for kids in wheelchairs, but to create an environment everyone in the community can enjoy.
“Between video games and electronics, kids just don’t get out anymore,” Andelin said. “We want to have kids in a fully inclusive environment where there are no social barriers. At a young age, there needs to be interactions between disabled children and all other children. If this can happen, both groups will develop better socially and have a more active life.”
Andelin said the playground features rubber surfacing and ramps that make it wheelchair accessible everywhere in the playground.
“The ramps take you past the truck and up to the top of the castle, and then there are transfer points so kids can get from their wheelchair to the slides,” Andelin said. “We wanted transfer points because before them, the kids were kind of missing the best part of playgrounds.”
According to the blueprint right now, the playground will be more than 15,000 square feet, Andelin said, and features a pirate ship, castle and interactive musical instrument areas.
“The park is huge and it won’t just benefit people with disabled children,” Andelin said. “Over 1,000 people visit the center each week, and it is centrally located to benefit the students and the residents of Logan.”
Andelin said they need students help to achieve their goal of building this playground next year.
“If each student donated $5, we could have this playground built for Logan,” Andelin said. “It is going to be the best playground Logan has ever had.”
-debrajoy.h@aggiemail.usu.edu
Kalai performed at a benefit concert for Logan’s Whittier Center. Students in a management and human resources class organized the event to raise money for a new playground at the center.