"The Miracle League Field - The Design of an Outdoor Athletic Facility for Special Needs Children"
By Kevin M. Selger, RLA, ASLA, LEED® AP
Every now and again a design firm is given a unique opportunity to work on a special project that is personally and professionally rewarding and will have a lasting and positive impact on the local community. The design firm of Gilmore & Associates, Inc. was given that opportunity by the Miracle League of Northampton Township to help their organization design a baseball/softball field and multi-purpose athletic field to serve special needs children and young adults in our community. The project is called Miracle League Field and it will be located at the Northampton Township Municipal Park in central Bucks County, PA. It will give children with any disability, whether physical or mental, the opportunity to play the great game of baseball, soccer, or Challenger football.
The local organization is part of a national Miracle League organization which was established in 1998 in Georgia to give children who could not participate on standard baseball fields the opportunity to play baseball. Today the organization has grown to 200 local Miracle League organizations across the United States and Puerto Rico and serves over 80,000 children and young adults with disabilities. There have been 100 Miracle League fields completed to date and there are an additional 100 fields in development or under construction. The local Miracle League organization currently serves over 100 children and young adults in the local community and is continuing to grow. This field will help them serve more children and young adults who do not currently have a field that is truly handicapped accessible and safe.
The landscape architecture and engineering team from Gilmore's Langhorne, PA office has been working with the local Miracle League Board members and volunteers and with Northampton Township officials on the project. The project includes a baseball/softball field and a multi-purpose field for use for Special Olympics Soccer, Challenger Football, and other appropriate sports. Key to the success of the project is the fields and their access must be entirely handicapped accessible and safe. The baseball/softball field will be surfaced in a specialized rubber material and the soccer/football field will be surfaced in synthetic turf making them safe if a player falls. The fields are designed to be fun and challenging for the players but also meet their abilities. Other features include accessible walkways, a plaza, seating areas, bleachers which allow wheel chair access, and landscaping. Another desire of local organization is to make the baseball field, to the greatest extent possible, have the feel of a baseball stadium. To achieve the stadium look the plans include masonry and metal roof dugouts, a low wall along the backstop fence, outfield fence signage, foul-poles, flag-poles, and a score-board just like a baseball park. There are also future plans to design and construct a barrier-free playground.
Beyond giving these children a place where they can participate in outdoor sports it also gives them a field they can call their own. Inclusion is a major part of the Miracle League mission. The location of the field in the Municipal Park was partially chosen because it is centrally located and directly adjacent to all of the other baseball and softball fields used by other children. The Miracle League will be playing their games at the same times as the other children are playing on the adjacent fields. The idea is that these children are not different from the other children playing on the other fields; they just want to play sports and have fun doing it. The Miracle League also has buddy system where kids from local schools and baseball/softball leagues buddy up with Miracle League players to assist them during the game. It is a win-win for all of the kids participating.
Currently the project is progressing through the development approval process for both Northampton Township and Bucks County. The local organization is targeting to start construction in 2010. The Miracle League of Northampton Township has been actively fundraising and seeking in-kind donations to help with the construction of the fields. They also have sponsorship opportunities. If you or your business would be interested in helping the Miracle League of Northampton Township please contact: Joe Hand at jhand@miracleleaguenhpa.org or (215) 364-9000 or you can visit their website: http://www.miracleleaguenhpa.org/
Kevin M. Selger, RLA, ASLA, LEED® AP is a Senior Landscape Architect at Gilmore & Associates, Inc. He can be contacted at (215) 369-3955 or kselger@gilmore-assoc.com.