Editor’s Be aware: This text was initially revealed on Could 17, 2022. It has since been up to date.
Gordon Hartman was heartbroken as he watched his 12-year-old daughter unable to make buddies at a swimming pool throughout a household trip. His daughter Morgan is autistic and was born with cognitive and bodily particular wants. He began looking for an inclusive public place that might be enjoyable for everybody. When he discovered no such place, he determined to construct one himself. That is how he began Morgan’s Wonderland, an ultra-accessible theme park in San Antonio, Texas. It is a spot for everybody, the place individuals with and with out disabilities can come collectively for enjoyable and a greater understanding of each other.
“It’s a park for one hundred pc of the individuals, not one for 90 or 80 p.c of them, it’s for everyone, irrespective of how acute their particular want perhaps,” Hartman advised PEOPLE. “That’s what my dream was.” Hartman additionally mentioned that anybody with a incapacity is admitted freed from cost, no questions requested.
Hartman needed to create a spot the place no youngster would really feel discriminated in opposition to. “It’s about not letting anybody really feel completely different. That’s what we tried to do with this park,” he mentioned. The park opened in 2010 and have become the world’s first theme park designed with disabled individuals in thoughts and constructed for everybody’s enjoyment. The fully wheelchair-accessible park options greater than 25 components, together with rides, playgrounds and different colourful points of interest. Hartman made his fortune as a homebuilder, beginning as a landscaper on the age of 15. He started his personal homebuilding enterprise at 19 and began a land improvement firm by the age of 23. His firm was the most important regionally owned homebuilding and land-development enterprise in San Antonio.
Hartman’s love for Morgan is what drove him to promote his corporations in 2005 and set up the Gordon Hartman Household Basis so he and his spouse, Maggie, may assist kids and adults with disabilities. He constructed the theme park in a fashion that comes with individuals with and with out disabilities and removes the barrier between them. He believes accessibility is the important thing to acceptance and camaraderie between kids as effectively. He collaborated with architects, engineers, medical doctors and therapists to design the $35 million park. Among the many many points of interest are a completely accessible prepare, playground and a Ferris wheel. The park additionally supplies particular wristbands that may observe the whereabouts of tourists, which is useful for individuals with autism.
The park is inclusive about hiring as effectively, with one-third of its workers being individuals with particular wants. He additionally began a completely accessible $17 million water park referred to as Morgan’s Inspiration Island, and the park supplies waterproof wheelchairs freed from cost and likewise complimentary waterproof baggage for ventilators and O2 water-collar covers for visitors who have to cowl tracheas. Morgan’s Inspiration Island was acknowledged by Time Journal in its World’s Best Locations listing in 2018.
Hartman has had many tearful mother and father thank him for creating an accessible area for individuals with disabilities. He recalled the time an emotional father held his hand and began crying. He pointed to his grownup son enjoying within the water and mentioned he had by no means seen his child play. One other couple thanked them for serving to their daughter benefit from the park versus being a spectator. “So many individuals advised us that this is able to be a possibility for our daughter to lastly have a spot the place she wouldn’t have to sit down on the sidelines, she may really do all the pieces,” they advised him. It is the happiness of tourists that drives him on. “That’s precisely what this complete place is about.”
