Sensory walk now open at Berryhill Park

Boston Powell, 2, bangs on the drums at the new sensory walk at Berryhill Park in Searcy on Tuesday. The walk was the brainchild of Kristi Thurmon, vice president for marketing for First Security Bank in Searcy. Bank employees raise funds for a charity or project each year, and they decided to do a sensory walk, working with Mike Parsons, parks director for the city of Searcy.
Boston Powell, 2, bangs on the drums at the new sensory walk at Berryhill Park in Searcy on Tuesday. The walk was the brainchild of Kristi Thurmon, vice president for marketing for First Security Bank in Searcy. Bank employees raise funds for a charity or project each year, and they decided to do a sensory walk, working with Mike Parsons, parks director for the city of Searcy.

— Each year, First Security Bank in Searcy raises money for a charity or group in the area. This year, the bank’s staff wanted to do something different.

Kristi Thurmon, vice president for marketing at First Security, said a new idea was hatched — funds for a sensory-type walk.

“We have been raising money for different charities for about a decade or so,” she said. “We wanted to do something this year that we could see and feel and touch, instead of just writing a check. So we got together with a few of our employees and thought about what we could do that would benefit the community, that would be something that all ages and abilities would be able to enjoy.”

The sensory walk was born.

“I had seen a similar park in Paris, Texas,” Thurmon said. “We started researching how much it would cost and what would be involved in doing a sensory trail. That is what we did.”

The bank and its employees raised $5,800 for what is the first phase of many to come for the sensory walk at Berryhill Park in Searcy.

“This is going to be the first phase of the sensory trail,” Thurmon said. “We hope to add on to it as the years go by. We’re going to keep raising money for it. We do a fundraiser in May every year. Hopefully, we’ll be able to raise as much this coming year as we did in 2018, and we can continue to add on to the park.”

Searcy Parks Director Mike Parsons said the donation paid for the five apparatuses on the trail. The only thing the city paid for was the concrete.

“Berryhill Park is our [Americans With Disabilities Act] handicapped-accessible playground,” he said. “We wanted to do something to go along with that. That is when we came up with the sensory play walk with the intention of adding to it every year.”

Parsons said some of the items include a drum set, an electronic piano and wheels that make sound and have sand that moves when they are spun.

“We opened [the sensory walk] on Nov. 14,” he said. “Once we knew what we wanted and ordered the parts, it came together pretty quickly. We wanted to get it up and running before we kicked off the holiday lights at the park. It was probably about a three- to five-month project. We got it done pretty quickly.”’

Thurmon said she approached Parsons about the project.

“We had talked about some different equipment but landed on this,” she said. “It is something the city didn’t already have. We wanted to do something to make a difference in the community.”

While Berryhill Park is handicapped-accessible, Thurmon said, the sensory walk is for everyone.

“It’s actually for all needs and abilities, but that includes children with special needs,” she said. “It has a wheelchair-accessible walkway. The equipment is at the right height for younger kids and older kids to be able to use. We wanted something that would be good for special-needs kids and for everyone, young and old.

“I had fun playing with it myself.”

Staff writer Mark Buffalo can be reached at (501) 399-3676 or mbuffalo@arkansasonline.com.

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