Tampa Foundation Adds New Partners, Fun For Kids Of All Abilities

Missy Kavanaugh | Tuesday, April 27, 2010

The Freedom Playground Foundation in Tampa is partnering with Hardeman Kempton & Associates Landscape Architects to design more community inclusive parks and playgrounds in the Tampa Bay region.

"We charge a fee for the design, but that's it," says Stefani Busansky, the mom-turned-activist entrepreneur who spearheaded the effort to create Freedom Playground for children of all abilities at McFarlane Park on MacDill Avenue in West Tampa.

"We've been working with Plants4myyard.com, a business that targets do-it-yourself homeowners. We have a very symbiotic relationship,'' Busansky says. "Proceeds from their sales go to the Freedom Playground Foundation. We like the concept of working with a community-based organization."

Busansky began the push to make parks more accessible in 2004 for children unable to use traditional playground equipment.

"My daughter, now 10, was in a wheelchair," Busansky explains. "We'd go to parks and it was just difficult to get around."

The Freedom Playground Foundation, a nonprofit organization that builds universally designed equipment for playgrounds, parks and gardens, has since built playgrounds at Grady Elementary and LaVoy Exceptional Center, and for the cities of Temple Terrace and Fernandina Beach.

The Foundation collaborates with Plants4MyYard.com, an entreprenuerial effort by award-winning architect and arborist Ted Kempton that offers DIY homeowners in the Tampa Bay region the ability to buy plants and mulch online and have them delivered directly to their homes.

Hardeman Kempton also does affordable custom designs and, for an additional charge, will install the plants for homeowners. Plants4MyYard.com donates a portion of its sales back to Freedom Playground Foundation.