For more than two decades, Kids Courtyard in Lancaster has stood along Elm Street, welcoming generations of families to get together and play, whether it was during school, or the summer.

It was a project that was literally built by the community, which spent a week constructing it, and with community money with businesses and individuals paying for commemorative bricks and paying the cost of playground parts.

Now, another group wants the community to come together again, and build a whole-new playground for the next generations of children, and be one that does not have any physical barriers for any child to be able to enter.

Their plan is ambitious - completely replace the existing Kids Courtyard with a new playground which will have 77 different play events and eight large structures, that will be completely inclusive for anyone with mobility or sensory issues.

They have worked with the staff of Winskill Elementary School so that the new playground not only can be utilized for recess, but also for the early childhood and physical education classes.

It will be set up to cater to those who may be on the autistic spectrum. It will have communication boards to help break down language barriers.

All of that does have a price tag - $1 million to replace Kids Courtyard, with another $200,000 to build an early childhood playset near the front of Winskill. Despite that number, the group is ambitious, and hopes through grants, then a fundraising campaign locally for the final  25 percent, they could break ground next August.

The group working on this comes from the Friends of Winskill, which took on part of the responsibility of maintaining the current Kids Courtyard. Meeting in the Winskill Library Sunday as they began working on grant applications, the group talked about why they want to replace Kids Courtyard with a new one, and what they hope it will bring.

Courtney Duncan, current President of Friends of Winskill, said that she and others, including Crystal Knapp, have been thinking about this for the past three years.

Duncan stated that as part of the work to upkeep the current playground, the group spends days power washing, then staining all of the wood structures, spreading the wood chips (which are purchased by the Lancaster Community School District) and making repairs to broken items. It adds up in both manpower and costs for Friends of Winskill.

Looking to update the playground, they contacted a couple of firms to replace the wood chips with something more durable, like shredded rubber.

Wood chips are part of the design to help reduce impact of falls at Kids Courtyard, but the natural material breaks down at a notoriously quick rate. For example, despite the fact that the school district added new wood chips in April, the chips in the playground today are practically gone - dirt can be visible in spots, and the distance between the markers for the required height of the wood chips, and the wood chips themselves have six inches separating them in many places on the playground.

Because of their nature to break down, many new playgrounds use rubber, either shredded or poured-in-place (PIP) rubber surfaces, similar to the Inclusive Park in Platteville.

Duncan stated that the firms they contacted refused to come because Kids Courtyard did not match current codes for playgrounds, which have greater distances between swings and other structures, as well as added spaces for fall zones.

The group pointed to the playground being the place of eight falls in the past year that resulted in cuts or broken bones that required going to the emergency room. According to information provided, the falls were a fractured arm off the monkey bars, the loss of a permanent tooth from a fall, some lacerations to the head.

Now how does that compare with the rest of the play equipment in the district? According to District Administrator Rob Wagner, the injuries are greater there than on other equipment, but that is also because Kids Courtyard is “the most populated area of play outside” and that during a walkthrough in August, the maintenance staff found no safety issues.

Wagner also said that the maintenance staff also go through the playground and makes repairs of places where needed.

“No playground is going to completely prevent falls,” said Katie Glass, one of the people in the group looking to build a new playground. But the hope is to make one that is safer, with PIP rubber on the ground, and a design with improvements in safety in mind.

“Even though the turrets are real cool, they are too high,” said retired teacher Marcia Chamber, who worked building the current Courtyard, and is working to replace it. Chambers is hoping to have a retired teachers challenge as part of the fundraising.

In addition to replacing the playground to have less maintenance, and to increase safety, the new Kids Courtyard would be modeled after more inclusive playgrounds that will allow all to enter.

“For a number of children, they can not get into that playground,” Duncan said.

Knapp said that they were working on this before Platteville’s Inclusive Playground was publicized, as they had been researching this for the past three years.

“A wheelchair cannot even attempt to get on that structure,” Knapp said of the current playground.

Knapp talked about in addition to those children who utilize a wheelchair being able to go in and play, the new playground is designed to be welcoming to those children on the autistic spectrum, including spinner, and with its layout and fencing to insure the children remain safe inside.

Designs of those 77 play events will include places to play to connect with emotional, cognitive, and imaginative parts of the child. There will also be a serenity area to help with items like anxiety.

To further safety, the new playground will have security cameras and lights incorporated, which will tie into school’s security system.

Once built, the playground will be given to the school district. 

What happens to the current Courtyard?

The new Kids Courtyard is to take up the entire location of the current Kids Courtyard, which means the entire current structure would be removed.

Because of liability concerns, the plan right now is not to sell or auction off any of the current structures, but to dispose of them.

While all of the current courtyard would be taken down and removed, the pavers with donors’ names, as well as the signage noting all who worked on the original Courtyard would be preserved and incorporated into the new playground.

“It’s still going to be honored,” said Knapp, who noted her husband worked on the current playground.

For Sally Harper, who was one of the organizers of the original Kids Courtyard project, it was a shock when she was told that there was a plan to completely replace the community project that has brought people together for 21 years.

“We thought it would stand for at least 50 years,” Harper said.

Walking through the playground Monday, Harper pointed to different items on the playground. The dome was designed and made by Kathy Addison as part of the ties to the community built in. There is a performance stage marked for Reeds Opera House, with seating areas. The tractor play area was a request from the children of Winskill, while the carved animals and other elements were done by the Art and Tech Ed students.

Her father carved the Kids Courtyard nameplate while visiting.

She joked about how her son, now on the Lancaster Common Council, was angry as he was entering fifth grade when the playground was complete, which meant he could not play on it during school, because at the time the fifth grade was located in Lancaster Middle School. Her daughter got an extra year, because when she was in the fifth grade, they were in Winskill.

The current Kids Courtyard was based on a playground in Ft. Collins, CO, where Sally’s husband is from, one that has been continually added on to in the years since it inspired Kids Courtyard.

Because of its design, upkeep was always going to be important, which is why Harper created a fund within the Lancaster Community Fund specifically for upkeep, in the name of her father, to help with that.

Harper and XX spearheaded a group to raise approximately $125,000 to build Kids Courtyard. She joked that because the community was going to be building it, Leathers and Associates, which designed and helped construct it, ordered 25 percent more wood as they always assumed more waste when the public was helping.

Because Lancaster’s volunteers were expert woodworkers, the extra wood went on to add items not part of the original design.

Leathers and Associates is still in business, and on their website, they now incorporate things like PIP rubber ground coverings.

Harper said that if the community thinks it is time to completely replace Kids Courtyard, and can raise the money, so be it, but also wondered about incorporating the current and the future to make something safe and inclusive for future children of the community.

Currently, the group working for the new Kids Courtyard is working on grants. Last month, they showed the Lancaster Community School Board their plans, and the board approved putting $150,000 towards the project, as well as collecting the grant and donations in their accounts.

The plan is not to build anything until all of the money is collected for the project. 

For those looking to find out more, or wishing to donate, there is an email address - kidscourtyard2024@gmail.com - set up for the project.