Despite delays caused the COVID-19 pandemic, an effort to build an all-inclusive playground at Central Park in Santa Clara is still moving ahead, with the Magical Bridge Foundation in the midst of a $1 million campaign to provide part of the funds needed to make the project a reality.
The first Magical Bridge playground opened in Palo Alto in 2015, with a second in Redwood City and more in the works or planned for Morgan Hill, Sunnyvale and other communities.
Olenka Villareal was inspired to create the first Magical Bridge playground because there wasn’t a place in Palo Alto where her daughters Ava, who was born with disabilities, and Emma, who was not, could play together. She knew that playgrounds were a place for social interaction — not only for kids, but for parents, too — and that her younger daughter was missing out on that experience. “I realized how many in our communities were really overlooked in the design of something as important as a public playground,” she said.
To her surprise, Palo Alto city leaders gave her a free hand to come back with a design proposal for part of Mitchell Park, which she did and then mounted an amazing fundraising campaign with several volunteer partners, including Jill Asher, who now serves as executive director of the Magical Bridge Foundation. Six years later, the Palo Alto playground is still drawing 25,000 visitors a month — and Villareal hopes that success can be replicated in Santa Clara.
The planned design includes a zone for kids under 5, swings, slides, a two-story playhouse and an improved picnic area. Other features may include a sway boat, a lookout balcony and an adult fitness station. While the playgrounds are designed to be welcoming for people living with autism, visual or hearing limitations or other medical condition, they are also made to be easier for aging adults, like grandparents out with their grandkids for a day.
The budget for the Santa Clara playground is $4.5 million, with the Santa Clara County pledging a $1.765 million grant and the city providing $1.8 million. The Magical Bridge Foundation is raising the remainder, though the COVID-19 pandemic created a big challenge.
“That fundraising effort started right around when COVID hit,” Villareal said, adding that the foundation’s strategy involves going deep into communities and involves school visits and in person fundraisers. “All that physical outreach was completely put on the back burner, and I think — rightfully so — that people had a lot of other things on their minds.”
Still, the early results have been encouraging with donations including $25,000 from the Brill family, $20,000 from Mike Strouf and the Genesis real estate team; $10,000 each from the Valley Foundation, the Mission City Community Fund, and the Latimer family; and $50,000 from a private family foundation.
Construction plans are expected to be finished later this year, with a groundbreaking next year and an opening sometime in 2023. You can go to magicalbridge.org/santa-clara to learn more about the project or donate.
TEACHER-STUDENT REUNION ON ‘TODAY’: Joy Hart made a big impression on Bay Area writer and filmmaker Sephora Woldu when she was in her second-grade class at Farnham Elementary School in San Jose. When Woldu’s family moved away at the end of the school year, she gave her address to the teacher, who wrote to her and started a correspondence that spanned years.
They told their story Thursday morning on the “Today” show for Teacher Appreciation Week, with Woldu crediting Hart for encouraging her writing like no adult had ever done before. When Woldu’s first book, “Adventures in the Art of Rejection,” was published last year, one of the first things she did was email Hart — who now teaches second grade at Sartorette Elementary in the Cambrian School District — to ask if she could give her a copy. They met and took a walk near Farnham School, and Hart brought along some of the letters Woldu had written her.
“It was very important for her to have a copy of the book because something as simple as her treating me with kindness and respect as a second grader helped me to understand that something like writing a book is possible,” Woldu said on the “Today” segment.
“It’s just amazing,” Hart said of her former student on the show. “She’s just wonderful. She’s beautiful inside and out, just like when she was little.”
BOOKENDS: The seventh annual Bay Area Book Festival, which went virtual this year, is wrapping up with a strong second weekend that features sci-fi authors Nnedi Okorafor and Jeff VanderMeer, former U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith, and a conversation between therapist Irvin Yalom, author of “A Matter of Death and Life,” and famed author Joyce Carol Oates. Go to www.bayareabookfest.org for the full schedule.
