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A picture of our little girl at the Universal Louis DePasquale playground in Cambridge.

By Nicole-Marie Cannon

Now that voting has opened for the participatory budget, I wanted to share a project on there that is near to our hearts as a family. It’s called ‘play for all in the ‘Ville’.

While we have loads of playgrounds here in the city that have maybe one or two inclusive features, we don’t have a truly inclusive playground for kids with disabilities and their typical peers to play alongside each other. A lot of times kids with disabilities are playing on the sidelines while their peers get to go on the climbing structures and other play features, which really stinks. We worry about the message this is sending to all of the kids.

As a family, we’d love to see a climbing structure that also has ramps for kids of all abilities to play together. Things like accessible merry go rounds, seesaws, play houses, adaptive swings, zip line swings, musical elements, etc. would be amazing too. We’ve been told that inclusive playgrounds are some of the coolest – and we agree! Our favorite being Cypress Street Playground in Brookline.

We’re excited that this is a part of the participatory budget and hope that others in the city see the need for all of our kids to play together too.

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To  view the Participatory Budget and cast your vote visit: somervillema.gov/pb