City of Acworth Special Needs Park

"All Abilities" Playground Dedicated This Spring is Sixth Facility
Funded by Foundation

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Dignitaries gathered to cut the ribbon, and right behind them came the children, rushing to enjoy the Acworth special needs playground on May 3 at Horizon Park.

Funded in large part by a $50,000 grant from the Resurgens Charitable Foundation, the playground includes special play structures where all children, regardless of their abilities, can play together.

"Seeing the children on the playground makes all our work worthwhile," said Dr. D. Kay Kirkpatrick, co-president of Resurgens Orthopaedics and president of the Foundation board of directors.

The Foundation partnered with the City of Acworth on the playground project that is part of Horizon Field, a sports complex for special needs children in northwest Cobb County. Home Depot and Kaboom built the initial portion of the playground, and the Foundation donated funds to complete the project.

The Acworth playground is the sixth all abilities playground funded by the Foundation since it was founded in 2001 by physicians and staff at Resurgens Orthopaedics. A seventh playground is under construction this summer in East Cobb County.

"At Resurgens, we work with enough kids to realize that play is essential therapy to help young people grow stronger and healthier. Every child needs outdoor physical play. But some children who need it most, kids with disabilities, miss out because they simply don't have suitable facilities," Dr. Kirkpatrick said.

Resurgens Charitable Foundation, whose mission is "to support our community with the opportunities to play, to heal, to learn, and to live," was formed in 2001 with a fund raising effort in response to the terrorist attacks on September 11th. Since then, it has evolved to focus on youth health and fitness, raising funds to build specially designed "all abilities" playgrounds for children in the metropolitan Atlanta area. A major goal of the Foundation is to support construction of at least one of these playgrounds a year.