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Every good fairy tale needs a little magic.
For Makenna Hiebert, it came in the form of a mother with a big dream.
After a brain injury in 2023 left Makenna using a wheelchair, her mom Brittany noticed how few opportunities there were for her daughter to simply go outside and play.
“I just recognized that there was very limited access to outdoor accessible play, and so this became the dream,” Brittany said. “I was hoping to have a fully wheelchair accessible playground formed at St. Anne School.”
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But she didn’t want to build a playground that was merely accessible. She wanted one where every child could truly play.
“The hope was that it would actually be fun, and it would be accessible and it would serve the whole North End as well as the school,” she explained.
Brittany and Makenna Hiebert worked together to design the playground. They conducted extensive research by visiting as many accessible playgrounds as possible to see which elements were the most fun to play on. (Brittany Caffet/650 CKOM)
The price of that dream was about $370,000. It was an enormous fundraising goal, and last fall, Brittany wasn’t sure she could reach it.
“I remember feeling very discouraged and just being like, ‘Maybe I should just give up this project because it’s just too daunting of a goal,’” she recalled.
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There was no guarantee the grants would come through. No guarantee the community would rally. No guarantee the playground she’d envisioned would ever exist.
But then, one by one, little pieces of the dream began to fall into place.
People started saying yes.
A series of ramps make each and every area of this playground accessible by wheelchair. (Brittany Caffet/650 CKOM)
A significant donation from a local business in December helped the fundraising campaign snowball. Other businesses and donors came forward, and soon, the project had enough funding to move ahead in its entirety.
“This is really best case scenario,” Brittany said, still a little amazed that the playground she imagined has become a reality. “The community really rallied around us.”
The original plan was to build the playground in two phases to allow more time for fundraising. Instead, Brittany and Makenna get to see the whole dream come together at once.
“We were able to raise the funds to do both phases right off the bat,” she explained. “So this is our whole scale playground. Our dream come true.”
Brittany Hiebert said this is the first accessible playground in Saskatoon’s north end. (Brittany Hiebert/Submitted)
A few weeks ago, Brittany came by and saw the first signs of what was coming.
“The holes were in the ground, some of the ramps were up. It was so surreal to see it actually happen,” she said.
There are interactive panels throughout the ramps and at ground level, giving children something to do as they move through the playground.
“I really wanted to have the interactive panels so that every platform is actually fun and engaging,” she said. “And I wanted it to be fun for able-bodied kids as well as kids with disabilities.”
There is an accessible teeter-totter with specialized seats, along with a bench on the other side. That means children who need the accessible seat can use it, while others can sit across from them and still be part of the same activity.
There will also be high monkey bars, alongside lower parallel bars and monkey bars.
The idea is simple: children with different abilities should be able to play side by side.
Ask Makenna which part she likes best, and there is no hesitation.
“Snack shack.”
Makenna Hiebert’s very favourite part of the new accessible playground at St. Anne School is the snack shack! (Brittany Hiebert/Submitted)
The covered window features interactive boards and a restaurant-style window. Makenna will be able to wheel her chair up to the little platform at ground level, while her friends can order through the window.
“She loves that interactive, imaginative play,” Brittany said with a smile.
Makenna hasn’t just been waiting for her mom’s dream to be finished. She’s had a hand in creating it.
Brittany asked her daughter for input on colour schemes, activities on panel boards and other features. The two spent the past year visiting other playgrounds, talking about what they like, what they don’t like and what works best for Makenna in her wheelchair.
So when the playground opens, Makenna will recognize pieces of herself in it, including colours she chose personally, like yellow and purple.
The playground’s grand opening will be celebrated at St. Anne School on Sept. 10. (Brittany Hiebert/Submitted)
As Makenna heads into Grade 1, Brittany imagines her surrounded by friends who want to play with her, moving across the rubber surfacing, pulling herself along the low parallel bars or getting onto the teeter-totter.
For a mother, those small moments can carry enormous weight.
“Her body may not be able to keep up to where her mind is,” she said. “And so to be able to see her do some of those things independently just means a lot.”
The playground’s grand opening is set for Sept. 10, when the ramps, rubber surfacing, interactive panels and bright colours will finally become what they were always meant to be: a place for children to play.
This accessible teeter totter will make it possible for kids of all abilities to play alongside their peers. (Brittany Caffet/650 CKOM)
After a year and a half of fundraising, moments when the goal felt too big and the dream seemed too far away, Brittany will finally get to watch her daughter roll onto a playground built with her in mind.
Perhaps that’s the sweetest part of this fairy tale.
Makenna didn’t need someone to write her a perfect ending.
She just needed a place where she could be part of the story.
And with a little help from her mom, and a whole community that believed in the dream, that place is finally here.
This $370,000 dream once felt impossibly out of reach. But after just a year and a half of fundraising, Makenna’s accessible playground at Saskatoon’s St. Anne School is ready for play. (Brittany Hiebert/Submitted)
