Threads of Hope

With our busy lives, our homes, and our families, many of us believe we don’t have the time or energy to volunteer for a good cause. But guess what? The five recipients of Diablo’s 2007 Threads of Hope Awards set a stunning example of how it’s done, as they make major accomplishments in the name of community service.

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Liz Lamach
Matteo’s Dream Playground

The first thing kids notice at Matteo’s Dream Playground in Concord is the towering tree house. On a typical playground, kids would climb stairs or ladders to reach it. Disabled kids who use wheelchairs would have to sit on the sidelines and watch as their able-bodied peers had all the fun.

But Matteo’s Dream is not a typical playground. Liz Lamach, the mother of Matteo, an eight-year-old boy who is blind and uses a wheelchair, came up with the idea of creating a play space for kids of all abilities—those who can walk, see, and hear, and those who can’t. At this playground, which opened in May, kids like Matteo can roll their wheelchairs up wide, curving ramps to reach the tree house. From there, they can get a bird’s-eye view of surrounding Hillcrest Park and the rest of the 12,000-square-foot play structure, which also includes a chairlift and a huge boat in which they can sit in their wheelchairs and rock from side to side.

“Most of us take the play equipment at our local parks for granted,” notes Lamach, 44, a Concord native. She says that some of her best childhood memories were of days spent at city parks. She especially loved the twisty slide at Baldwin Park, where she would play from dawn until dusk.

Lamach and her partner, Rene Henderson, adopted Matteo as an infant. Because he had special needs, they didn’t know whether he would ever experience the joy of playing in a park.

“While some playgrounds allow disabled children to maneuver their wheelchair down to the edge of playgrounds, they can’t get to the equipment without help or even go onto sand without [their wheels] getting stuck,” Lamach says. “When we used to take Matteo to the park, he could never play with his cousins. He couldn’t see what he was missing, but he could hear the other children having fun.”

When Matteo was one year old, the family took a trip to Los Angeles, where they visited Shane’s Inspiration in Griffith Park, the first universally accessible playground in the western United States.

“It’s a beautiful playground with wheelchair-accessible ramps and a number of features that allow disabled children to play alongside other children,” Lamach says. But as much as she liked many of the park’s features, she saw things that could be improved upon.

She wished that the play structure had wider ramps and a wheelchair-friendly rubber ground covering instead of sand and bark—so she incorporated these ideas and others into a proposal for Concord to build the first playground of its kind in the Bay Area.

The city embraced her idea and donated Hillcrest Park on Olivera Road and $232,000 in park funds. As a member of the city’s Parks, Recreation, and Open Space Commission, Lamach brought together more than 3,300 volunteers, including those from various Lions Club chapters in Contra Costa and Alameda counties to raise more than $750,000 and help with construction.

Matteo’s Dream serves as a blueprint for how a park can be constructed for all children. Designed by Dennis Wille of Leathers and Associates of New York, the park also features giant musical instruments and stainless steel slides that don’t generate static electricity, which can damage deaf children’s cochlear implants.

Matteo’s Dream has surpassed even Lamach’s wildest expectations. She and her family frequently visit, and Matteo loves riding the specially designed bucket swings in the rocking boat and playing the xylophones, pipe drums, and chimes. Although he can’t speak, Lamach says Matteo waves his arms wildly and breaks into a contagious smile whenever he hears music. Today, his park brings smiles to the faces of many Bay Area children.

“One little boy told me that visiting Matteo’s Dream was like visiting Disneyland,” Lamach says. “He was in a wheelchair and said this park finally gave him a place where he could play just like his friends.”