Belleville hospital making kids’ therapy fun

By Haley Rose

BELLEVILLE – The Children’s Treatment Centre at Belleville General Hospital  is building a playground to help kids who need physical therapy.

Five-year-old Fraser Bonn is one of the children who will benefit from the playground, which is to open early next month.

“You can see the excitement on Fraser’s face when he sees the playground being built,” says his mom, Cassandra Bonn. “He says, ‘That playground is being built for me.’ So I think the kids are really going to get a great experience out of that environment.”

Fraser, who has cerebral palsy, is one of more than 1,000 children who received therapy at the treatment centre last year.

Cassandra Bonn and Kristen Whalen are co-chairs of the Belleville General Hospital Foundation’s Help Them Play campaign, which raised the money to pay for the new playground.

The two women decided the centre needed an upgrade, Bonn said.

“Kids want to be outside. They don’t want to be stuck inside,” she said.

The therapy playground will be equipped with sensory boards, physical challenges and different types of terrain for scooters, walkers and wheelchairs.

Jenn Barrett, director of development at BGH Foundation, said the idea of building a playground first came up three or four years ago. Construction started last year, assisted by a flood of donations that came from the Help Them Play campaign.

“We have some children that this will be the only playground that they’ll ever play in,” Barrett said. “So it’s a really important part of our community.”

With the playground, “we’re disguising therapy as play.”

Bonn said it will be the only playground in the area that is fully accessible.

“We want it to be a place where they want to come for therapy,” she said.

The project’s price is $300,000, with only $30,000 left to raise. Those interested in donating can do so by visiting bghf.ca/stories/playground or by contacting Barrett at 613-969-7400, ext. 2403.