Imagination Playground History
Built in 1987 by the Gates-Chili Community
The playground located behind the old Holy Ghost School at 230 Coldwater Road, Rochester NY was built in 1987 by local families right here in the Gates community. They all worked together to create this beautiful space for children to play and families to gather. This playground has been open to the community for decades and will continue to be open to the public.
Our Inspiration
In June 2021, we had a mother come visit our center with her beautiful little girl, who has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair. We gave them a tour of our facility, and then it was time to go out to our playground. We explained to the mother that our playground is not wheelchair accessible. The mother went on to say, “that is ok, most playgrounds around here aren’t, she can just sit on the side and watch”. That statement broke our hearts! No child should EVER have to sit out while all their friends are playing, and no parent should have to accept this as a reality for his/her child. We decided that we needed to come up with a solution!
Our Solution
We reached out to a company called Play by Design, out of Ithaca NY that builds custom wooden playgrounds. We talked about various options. Should we just update our existing playground or build a new one? We decided to refurbish our current playground and then add an additional fully inclusive playground alongside it! This way we can honor the past and embrace the future. A few months later we organized a Design Day, where all the children got to draw pictures of their ideal playground. The designer took their drawings and created a playground that incor After our encounter with this little girl and her mother, we reached out to a company called Plporated so many of their ideas. However, this playground is going to be expensive, over $1,000,000.
