Coming Soon: Splash Pad at Bentley's Playground will be having fencing placed around it and opening of restrooms. KPLAY Playgrounds for All is a 501(c)(3) non-profit public charity founded with the purpose of bringing handicap-accessible play equipment to public playgrounds in the Keokuk, Iowa, community. Prior to the June 2015 opening of Bentley's Playground in Tolmie Park on Plank Road in Keokuk, there were no accessible playgrounds available in the Tri-State area surrounding Keokuk. Families with children needing adaptive equipment were required to drive 1-1/2 hours to Iowa City, or even 3 hours to St. This limited playground time to occasional trips, usually combined with a trip to the doctor's. KPLAY was founded as an open, public-action committee sponsored by the Keokuk Odd Fellows Lodge in early 2014 to address this demonstrated need. KPLAY and the Keokuk Odd Fellows enlisted the enthusiastic help of the Keokuk Rotary Club and other community service organizations to raise funds and to install Phase 1 of Bentley's Playground. Local contractors generously donated time, equipment, and materials for installation. KPLAY has worked hard to bring more accessible, inclusive play opportunities to our community. We celebrated the Grand Opening of Bentley’s Playground in June 2015. Bentley’s Playground is named after a 10 year old Keokuk resident, Bentley McGhghy, who was born with Cerebral Palsy. Phase I consisted of a swing set with handicap-adaptive seats and a music play station, all accessible via smooth and level concrete walkways from the new handicap parking pad. The music play station combines a marimba, xylophone, tongue drums and rain wheel into one unit so that several children can interact and play at the same time. Both the swings and the music station are connected to a new handicap parking pad with concrete access walkways. Phase II was opened in the Summer of 2016 with a 6,700 square feet expansion featuring zip track with both regular and adaptive seating, adaptive merry-go-round, adaptive saucer swing that accommodates reclining and multiple riders, more music and sound toys and composite structure with ramps with many play items such as slides, climbers, play panels, and an accessible Rock N Raft ride. The estimated budget for the expansion was $300,000. Now our eyes and hearts are fixed on the goal of adding a $200,000 expansion to Bentley’s Playground in the Summer of 2022. This project will be a Splash Pad to be located at Bentley’s Playground at Tolmie Park in Keokuk, Iowa. We are once again trying to bring children with all kinds of disabilities the ability to play together with their peers and teach everyone that we are all different and acceptance is the key to this. This splash pad will have fun and colorful objects that will squirt water when touched or ran through. Some of the features that we are looking at are buckets that will fill up with water and then rain down on you. A circle that will squirt water when ran or pushed through and many other objects that will allow someone in a wheelchair access to play with other children. When this vision is completed, the results will be a valuable asset to all the families and children in the Tri-State Region!! Together we can do this -- bring play opportunities to children of ALL abilities in our community and region! Every little bit helps, whether it’s a dime or dollars from the neighborhood, or major donations from community-minded corporate and business sponsors. Donations can be made to “KPLAY” , PO Box 1233, Keokuk, Iowa 52632 or via our website DONATE button at http://www.kplay.org/.
