The Sensory Playground

The epiphany that began the crazy journey that led us here!

Mission Statement

Providing the special needs community an all-inclusive, safe, relaxing environment where stimulating the senses is essential for quality of life and provides comfort to the entire family.

We are looking to achieve Registered Charity status in Alberta for 2023

We are a Volunteer Organization

Our Story actually began in 2011, as a chapter of Project Linus.

We provided blankets, clothing and hygiene products to homeless children and families of abuse. During the holiday season, we made sure children in local shelters were found by Santa Claus, with stockings full of surprises and little gifts.

Moms would receive pajamas set and a gingerbread house kit to make with her children.

After Covid hit, many changes occurred within our little nonprofit.

We lost an Executive Director to kidney failure. Sharon Poteet was one of the first people I met moving to Alberta in 1992. The community will be without a wonderful volunteer; and I without a friend.

My grandson was born with only one working kidney. His three surgeries failed. After the third, our usually rambunctious, high energy, talkative, two-year-old, little guy, suddenly stopped speaking.

I would like to give you an explanation as to why, but at the point I'm writing this, we still don't know what happened. He sits on waiting lists for specialists...as many other children his age.

Covid placed many children in a waiting lists position. They fell through the cracks, unable to see specialists in person, if the specialists were available at all. He should be in Pre-K right now, but the program he waits for is where they will diagnosis him. So, we wait.

The problem with waiting, is my grandson is falling through the cracks. He falls further and further behind, while kids his age move forward. We are all trying to do right by him. We are learning to sign together. Helping the little fella have some way to communicate, because you can see the frustration growing.

Covid made it impossible to socialize with other children. His first time in a social setting, we were concerned how he would react with other children, and how other children would react to him, being non-verbal. We took him to a small-town fair. He was so thrilled to see another little human, all the worries faded.

We searched for other social settings in which he could play with other children. Unfortunately, the public play centers just were not a safe environment. He screamed a lot to vocalize his feelings.

This can be frightening to some children. But the reaction from parents is what is disheartening.

When the Need hits Home

We admit, we didn't know a thing about dealing with a special needs child. I guess in a perfect world, that would be a good thing.

Unfortunately, we were not given much instruction how to move forward either. We didn't know what to research because...well. We don't have any answers. So, we do what all parents do. We Google it!

We go on social media and watch reel after reel until you recognize a similar behavior.

You don't want to listen to the stylist at the child's hair salon respond, when you tell her he's not being rude, he is nonverbal, say, "Oh he's Autistic." When you have not even heard the word from a doctor yet.

Sure! Autism crossed our minds. as did PTSD, Deafness, Stroke in surgery, because he was traumatized during his last surgery at the time of covid. The hospital staff took him from his mom's safe arms in full hazmat gear.

It almost broke his mother's heart; He screamed the entire walk to the OR and he could not be consoled when he woke up in recovery. He stopped speaking after that.

There are many possibilities as to why my grandson suddenly stopped speaking. When we know, I will include it in the with updates.

With the information we did have. Yes, from Google! And other sources, it led us to the one thing all special needs children, adults, and seniors benefitted from.

Sensory rooms! Now unless you have witnessed a meltdown, could you begin to understand the effect a sensory room has on a person having a sensory overload.

The outside world sees a bratty child having a tantrum. Far from it! The only way to describe it is Being in a room that is too loud, too bright, too much movement, too much uncertainty...overload, uncontrollable meltdown... now be a three-year-old child seeing this, all day, every day. Yeah. Scary!

Sensory rooms are not a passing trend. They are the future! The effect a sensory room has on special needs people specifically is short of miraculous.

Time in a sensory room helps children improve their visual, auditory and tactile processing, as well as fine and gross motor skills. It provides a sense of calm and comfort to help self-regulate behavior and ultimately improve focus.

The more research, the more advantages I found from every organization I contacted including, Autism, Mental Health, Hearing and sight Impaired, ADHD, and PTSD specialists.

In Canada, 1 in 66 children has autism according to a Toronto research study in 2018. The number grows annually. In Red Deer, that is over 1000 children! Those are the diagnosed cases. Many go undiagnosed.

When we searched Red Deer, we found two facilities that could even come close to calling what they had sensory rooms. They were difficult to access on a regular basis.

For the special needs population of Red Deer, there just was not enough sensory rooms or accessibility to them. Edmonton has a few sensory rooms worth mentioning. But it seems many turned a therapeutic need into a profitable business. I get it.

But traveling 4 hours round trip with a special needs child can be traumatic for both child and parent. The cost of a decent, sensory room is on the upwards of ten thousand dollars. We don't have that kind of money.

There are not many organizations who are willing to assist when children sit on waiting lists. especially, through no fault of the parents, the child is still undiagnosed!

I decided to build my grandson his own sensory room. Yes. Google Again! Without going into detail and killing everyone with boredom; With a lot of thrifting, and sourcing, it cost under $1000 in total.

I don't need to explain the benefit to my grandson because here we are.

Opening The Sensory Playground, free of charge to every and any special needs child, adult or senior.

It's not just a playground. It's an information station where families can network. Socialize and for once, have children in common!

The Sensory Playground is safe, judgement free, all-inclusive and stimulating. This place is built with only in-kind donations and the love the community has to see it continue.

We started this because of a need we saw and were affected by it enough to take a dream and make it reality. We want the Sensory Playground the best place around. Only with your help can we make this happen.

If everyone pitches in by fulfilling our wish list on the home page our playground could be the best anyone has seen! But it's up to you!

Together we can build the playground of our needs, or we can wait for corporate Canada to build a playground you will have to pay as you play. This playground is built by the community, for the community! We know the community has been suffering the past few years; both emotionally and financially.

The last thing we want to do is burden you further for continual money donations to sustain. But running the playground will not be cheap. We will not be fundraising.

We came up with a way to be self-sustaining.

Enter Boy Oh Boi Clothing Boutique.

A Secondhand boutique for Boyswear. Also located in the playground building. With both of us Directors, having sons, we know the difficulty wading through isles of glitter, bows and rivers of pink to find the one rack of boys, or masculine clothing.

Boy Oh Boi specializes in boys clothing only, for the boys and children who want to dress in more masculine clothing. We are always looking for boys clothing and toy donations.

Each time you purchase from Boy Oh Boi you keep the playground running! Thank you for that!

Remember, if you can't see the change, then it's up to you to be the change!

Thank you from Toni and myself, for your support!

We are all in this together!