Without Kiwanis, the outdoors wouldn’t be nearly as fun in Fremont. In 2002, the Kiwanis Club of Fremont installed five playgrounds around the city: at Rodger Young Park, Walsh Park, Anderson Field, Birchard Park and Biggs-Kettner Park. In 2021, they installed the Kiwanis Play Park, an inclusive playground, next to the existing playground at Rodger Young.
This year, the group constructed a shelter house at Rodger Young to tie the two playgrounds together. Tom Bowlus, Kiwanis member and Play Park committee member, said playground construction is just another way of improving the lives of local children.
“Kiwanis International focuses on serving the children of the world,” Bowlus said. “One of their mottos is, ‘Improving the world one child and one community at a time.’ We feel playgrounds fit really well with that mission, and we saw a need for them.”
The inclusive Kiwanis Play Park was built to inspire connection between children of all abilities, and the new shelter house helps tie the two playgrounds together to create a massive recreation area for families.
“I’ve been to inclusive playgrounds where there seems to be separate equipment for kids with special needs. That’s not what we wanted. We wanted equipment that all kids would use together,” Bowlus said.
The plan worked. On any given day, crowds of children of all abilities play together at the two playgrounds at Rodger Young.
