Courtney's Sandcastle

The Foundation and the City of San Clemente and the Junior Women’s Club came together in 2004 to build a universally accessible playground designed to provide a creative space for children with special disabilities.

Courtney Faye Smith is nine years old and is confined to a wheelchair by a rare muscular degenerative disease – Spinal Muscular Atrophy. When Courtney and her friends visit local parks together, Courtney is unable to participate because of her disabilities as is some 18,000 children in Orange County with disabilities.

Play is not simply a desire for children – it is an absolute necessity for the development of language, motor and social skills learn to be interdependent, take turns and meet challenges, instill a sense of self-determination and self-esteem, enhance cerebral/motor development and learn to respect and accept diversity through play.

In 2005 a generous donation of one-half the cost towards the construction was received leaving $700,000 required to complete the project. Courtney’s Sand Castle will be the first universally accessible playground in Orange County.

The park has been designed by Dick Fisher, who has built many of the West’s premier universally accessible and traditional parks. Once the park is built by SunCal Companies, it will be given to the City of San Clemente as a public park. Some of the components of the park will be:

• a simulated 60-square foot castle, with sloping, wheelchair accessible ramps;
• a simulated ship with a stern wheel and talking tubes.
• an elevated bowl that a child can approach in a wheelchair or on foot to interact with water and sand;
• a sensory garden with aromatic plants, bushes and plans designed as animals;
• a musical pathway, producing auditory stimuli.

Our partnership with the Junior Women’s Club,City of San Clemente and SunCal Companies has rallied community support for this project through continued donations.

If you would like to be a part of “Courtney’s Sand Castle” donations can be made through our Foundation website link. The San Clemente Beaches, Parks and Recreation Foundation is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization dedicated to building a stronger community by enriching the lives of local children, families and visitors through supporting the development of quality recreational facilities and programs through the city.