Wheelchair accessible playground coming to Bowling Green

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. – The Bowling Green Parks and Recreation division received a grant to provide a more inclusive play area for children.

At Roland Bland Park in Bowling Green the playground play area is covered in mulch.

Some kids with a physical disability cannot travel on that kind of terrain.

But, a $75,000 grant from the 2020 Kentucky Waste Tire Crumb Rubber Products Grant through the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet is allowing the parks to expand its current playground into an area laid with crumb rubber, which is wheelchair accessible.

A Bowling Green Parks and Recreation Staff Assistant, Madison Duncan, who uses a wheelchair for mobility, says she was too old to play on playgrounds when she was paralyzed, but understands now why inclusiveness for children is so important.

“I wouldn’t have been able to do what all of my friends are doing, and I think that would have really hurt, kind of, how I felt about myself and, you know. [I would] see that I can’t really do everything that I thought I could, and I can’t really do everything that my friends can do so I am not the same. I don’t think that is a really good thing that should be thought by most kids,” said Duncan.

The project is going out for bids soon and will be completed by December.