Founder, Boundless Playgrounds,
www.boundlessplaygrounds.org
Children learn cooperation, fairness, and problem solving skills by playing with as many different pals as possible. Unfortunately however, hundreds of kids with physical, developmental or sensory disabilities can’t join friends or make new ones on traditional playgrounds. These familiar neighborhood fixtures are often designed by rote, excluding children who can’t navigate steps, swings or slides.
Amy Barzach, while struggling to cope with her son Jonathan’s death from spinal muscular atrophy, decided to do something about it. Knowing that had Jonathan lived he would have needed a wheel chair, Amy envisioned a barrier-free paradise where no child’s differences would be magnified by narrowly conceived construction, nor even matter at all. Over the next eighteen months she rallied 1,200 volunteers, raised $500,000.00, and built a playground geared towards all kids, regardless of their individual challenges.
“Jonathan’s Dream” opened in 1996. Elated families, foundations, community leaders and educators all across the country wanted similar playgrounds in their areas, inspiring Amy to establish the non-profit Boundless Playgrounds in 1997. Today there are more than 100 Boundless ™ playgrounds in over twenty states, ensuring that children with and without disabilities can play together seamlessly, each child far richer for having spent time with the others.
Amy recently won the 2008 Martha Stewart Dreamers Into Doers Contest.
What we learned from Amy: Anyone can be an entrepreneur. It has nothing to do with genetics or education or connections. It’s all about desire. Once you give yourself permission to move forward and take action you can accomplish anything.
A mother’s worst nightmare
Before I had kids I was the Vice president of marketing for a real estate and shopping center developer. I had a great corporate career and kept working after my first son was born in 1991. But when my second son was born with spinal muscular atrophy and lived less than a year, that’s when I didn’t know what to do with the rest of my life. My professional skills, my talents, everything I knew I was good at – none of it had been enough to save him.
Finding her purpose
I’m a planner. But the death of my son was so out of my control that I couldn’t make sense of it. I did go back to work but it wasn’t until I remembered once seeing a little girl sitting in a wheel chair at the edge of a playground, unable to join in the fun that I really found my passion and my purpose. I realized that Jonathan would have been that little girl, and in his memory I could build a playground accessible to all children regardless of their differences or physical limitations.
Team work
I identified my vision for “Jonathan’s Dream” as well as my values and my beliefs, then I asked myself who else would want to see my plans take shape. This is called asset mapping; ask yourself, “who else cares?” I formed a committee and we identified a huge orbit of people who did care, who could care and who might care – educators, community leaders, medical professionals, parents, children – this playground had the potential to touch so many people.
101 kids
I can’t design my way out of a box. But I knew my limitations. I contacted playground companies for design advice but I found that the status quo wasn’t going to help me. So I went straight to the kids themselves. I invited 101 kids with and without disabilities to participate in “design parties.” I gave them every art supply I could think of and asked them to design their dream playground. The kids with disabilities were amazed with what I was asking them to do. They had never played on a playground and had never considered the possibility that they could.
Green light!
We had incredible community support and raised $500,000.00. That allowed us to hire a company called Learning Structures that specialized in community build playgrounds. They worked with us down to every last bolt to design exactly what we wanted. They sent engineers to teach our volunteers to build it. The sense of ownership and engagement we all shared were what made the project so beautiful. “Jonathan’s Dream” was completed only eighteen months after my son’s death, and the non-profit Boundless Playgrounds shortly after that.
Mother May I?
There are all kinds of women who, somewhere along the way, got the message that they weren’t good enough, weren’t smart enough or weren’t strong enough to go after their passions. I find that women act as though they’re waiting for someone to give them permission to succeed. Anyone can become an entrepreneur. I’m convinced that when you find your passion and are willing to invest in it, there are ways to move forward and take action if you have finally realized that it’s ok to do so. Watching women give themselves permission to be powerful is one of the greatest thrills in my life.
This Featured Lady was profiled by Susie Lacey, Associate Editor, Ladies Who Launch.
