Thanks to the students, all the children can now play during recess
At Glen Lake Elementary School in Hopkins Minnesota, some children weren’t able to enjoy themselves as much during recess. Their school had a great playground but it wasn’t accessible for the children with physical disabilities that go to the school. But now, students raised money to change that.
Physical disabilities
The elementary school in Minnesota has a great playground. But it wasn’t an accessible playground for children with some kind of physical impairment. And there are a lot of children with disabilities that go to the Hopkins-based school. There was no wheelchair merry-go-round or any adaptive equipment in the playground. And the students of Betsy Julien’s fifth grade class felt like that should change. Wyatt Feucht, one of the students, told CBS News: “It just didn’t seem fair that some kids were just left out.” So, they asked their teacher if she could buy the equipment for the playground. Julien said: “I said, ‘Do you know how much that costs?! It costs a lot of money,'” She estimated the costs to be around $300.000.
Fundraising
So, the children decided to raise the money themselves. They held bake sales, saved their money and went door to door to ask for donations. After that, they also contacted restaurants and businesses to ask for donations and with the support of the Glen Lake Parent Teacher Organization, they finally reached their goal. Julien is proud of her students. She told the news channel: “My future as an adult is bright knowing that this generation of students, of changemakers, sees something that needs fixing, and they go for it headfirst.” And the students with physical impairments are really happy too. John Buettner, who is in a wheelchair, told CBS: “First time I set foot on this playground I’m probably going to start crying from seeing the effort that all the school has made.”
But the students don’t stop there. Now that they’ve reached their goal, they decided to raise more money for accessible playgrounds for other schools in the district.
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Source: CBS News | Image: Unsplash, Nico Smit