The Story Of The Healing Angel Park In Perry Hall
The world has been in chaos throughout the years. The Boston Marathon Bombing in April 2013 had a massive uproar with the pressure-cooker bombs killing three people and wounding two hundred sixty others. In May 2017, the Manchester Arena Bombing killed twenty-three people and over a hundred people were injured. TV channels would have parents crying to see the deaths of their children. Even though all these tragedies, humans unite together for the greater good and in order to heal from these events. Similar to these disasters, in the local area of Perry Hall, a young boy named Ryan Szczybor would impact the community in such an extraordinary way that a park would be built for him called Angel Park.
Ryan Szczybor was the son of Kelli and Andy Szczybor. At the age of six months, Ryan was diagnosed with Leukemia, a common type of cancer where the abnormal white blood cells form in the bone marrow and quickly travel through the bloodstream and crowd out healthy cells, increasing risk infection and other problems in the body. Even though an extensive amount of treatment/conditions, Ryan sadly past away at a tender age of fifth teen months, only spending one birthday with his parents. The pain of losing their son is immeasurable; however, it did not keep them down. The family decided to turn the negative and frustrated emotions into something positive and uplifting. Kelli Szczybor worked at Annie’s playground ten years ago. The creation of Annie’s playground was from a little girl named Annie Cumpston who died by a drunk driver. The family of Annie were devastated but tried to heal their wounds by building a playground to remember Annie by. Kelli wanted to do something similar and build a playground in memorization of her young boy. She envisioned this park as a place of love and happiness for all. She contacted the House of Delegates Candidate Bill Paulshock and Councilman David Marks to find out a good place to build a park. Both Bill and David were on board with the idea and suggested a county owned land next to the Perry Hall Library.
Jim Haughton and Kyle Cundy, designers who made Annie’s Playground and YMCA playground, agreed to help out on building the park, asking first graders in St. Joseph Catholic School in Fullerton what they would like to see in a playground. The class erupted with ideas about their dream playground. Some of the suggestions were to include a zip line, a fire truck and ladder, a tunnel, sandboxes with buried treasure and dinosaur bones and a castle complete with tower featuring a safety net for climbing between the two. One of the first graders, Julianna Ferrerira, drew a house for Angel Park with slides that have a cushy landing at the end. With all these ideas from the school, the visual design of the park took place at Perry Hall High School, mixing as many ideas from the children as possible.
The building of Angel Park was all-volunteer effort from raising funds to completion of construction. Companies like “Sweet Frog” Frozen Yogurt also provided fundraisers for the park. The community managed to raise one million and a half dollars to make the park. Hundreds of volunteer came to Perry Hall area to help construct the park. It took two weeks to finally finish Angel Park but it was worth it. The park included three main components, the playground, amphitheater, and memorial ground. The playground had a wheelchair-accessible “shaky bridge, ” a Braille panel, therapeutic swings, thirty-foot accessible zip lines, as well as quiet spaces for children with autism and other conditions. A variety of paintings were shown on the fences such as fire trucks, pirate ships, a castle, and music stations. The amphitheater, recently named the “Bud & Bette Cole Amphitheater, ” has a big stage with at least five rows each having the capacity of having twenty people sitting. It is often used for main events like a talent show.
Finally, memorial ground was a small area with a memorial stone [insert the saying of the stone] next to the playground. It was a pleasant space where one could sit next to the memorial and reflection. Tragedies should not keep people from living. Even if they are as bad as bombings or more personal as a losing of a loved one, people unite together and turn something negative into something positive. The Szczybor family used their emotions for Ryan to build this park. Each building, each swing, each gravel, each piece of wood was made for Ryan and it was all worth it. And if Ryan was alive and saw this park, he would never leave this place at all.
