Posted on Wed, Apr. 02, 2008

BY LAURA MORALES

llmorales@MiamiHerald.com

JOSHUA PREZANT/ FOR THE MIAMI HERALD

From left Luis Palacios, son Matthew, 5, and wife Mercy pose for a portrait in front of a swing set near the Miami Lakes Community Center .

While most other kids at the park can quickly skip out to the swing set, 5-year-old Matthew Palacios gets stuck.

To put him on a swing at Community Center West, his mother, Mercy Palacios, has to scoop up Matthew and carry him over the sand that swallows his wheelchair's small front wheels.

She can roll him up a ramp to the bottom level of a raised jungle gym, but then three steps stop them short. ''We need to have a place where any kid can play,'' Palacios said. ``What we need is a boundless playground.''

Palacios, with the support of Miami Lakes town officials, has already raised just over half of the $300,000 needed to build that playground at Optimist Park , 6411 NW 162 St.

''We've gotten help from the Florida Marlins Community Foundation,'' Palacios said, adding that Macy's at Westland Mall allowed the nonprofit Joy Outreach Community Center , a group she began in Matthew's honor, to collect donations in the store.

The memory of a crying girl in a wheelchair at a park prompted Amy Jaffe Barzach, a Connecticut woman whose infant son had died, to start Boundless Playgrounds in 1997.

The group helps organizations and municipalities build play areas all children can enjoy. According to the group's website, there are more than 100 such playgrounds in the U.S. and Canada.

Three of those are in Miami-Dade, at Little Havana's Riverside Park, Unity Park and Westwind Lakes Park in West Kendall. Another is being built at Bryan Park in Shenandoah.

At Westwind Lakes , a uniform, springy turf allows kids to roll wheelchairs and walkers up to every part of the play structure and also cushions any falls.

Developmentally delayed children who become overstimulated can take refuge in one of the small, cozy spaces under the raised jungle gym.

At a recent Miami Lakes Town Council meeting, members unanimously voted for the first of three available options for the Optimist Park facility.

Plans for the Lakes playground include three raised platforms connected by wheelchair ramps, covered with green canopies and bristling with chutes for sliding, rungs for climbing and tubes for crawling.

Activity panels made to ADA specifications will allow kids to pretend they're driving a car, finding their way home or managing a store.

Strategically placed benches will give caretakers a clear view of the children at all times.

Palacios said her idea has gotten support from town officials.

Vice Mayor Nancy Simon has been pushing to get the playground built for several months.

''I was just in Tallahassee begging for money to begin the project,'' Simon said Friday. ``There aren't enough facilities like this.''

Miami Lakes Parks Director Tony Lopez said Monday that, once all the funds are in place and final approval given, the playground will take about 60 days to build.

Matthew Palacios, who was born with spina bifida, recently won $100 in a contest. 'He told me, `Mommy, give it to the town so they can build my playground,' '' Mercy Palacios said, ruffling her boy's hair.

For information on Boundless Playgrounds, log on to www.boundlessplay grounds.org.