MISSOULA – Downtown Missoula’s favorite playground — Dragon Hollow — is about to become more disability friendly thanks to a new fundraising campaign that kicked off on Thursday.
Some of the new features in the works include a wheelchair accessible merry-go-round and a rubberized pathway through Dragon Hollow to allow easier wheelchair access across the playground.
The project started as a simple refurbishing project to repair and replace older equipment but that turned into an all-out accessibility effort to make the park truly open to everyone.
People can lend a hand by volunteering to help build the new additions — and some important positions still need to be filled.
“The one committee I could really use some help with is tools. I need someone who is willing to borrow tools and then be here during the build to loan them out to people who are working,” said Theresa Cox who is the project’s steering committee coordinator.
“People will go out and use a screw gun for a couple of hours, it will run out of power and they will come back and just grab another one so nothing slows down out there. And I need somebody — or probably two somebody’s — to be the tool committee so that we can just keep things moving along all during the build,” she told MTN News.
Fundraising efforts for the upgrades are currently about $100,000 short of their $290,000 goal but the committee hopes hope to have the money by the time they build in May.
Click here for more information about volunteering or making a donation to the project.
Reporting by Connor McCauley for MTN News
