Tis the season of giving: Rotary club delivers joy, presents to Virginia School

Robert Summa, Appeal-Democrat, Marysville, Calif.
·3 min read

Dec. 9—Members of the Rotary Club of Marysville spread some early Christmas cheer on Thursday during a ribbon cutting and gift distribution at Virginia School in Wheatland, a special needs school that serves area students and is under the Yuba County Office of Education.

Part of its continued effort to support institutions such as Virginia School, the Rotary club celebrated the recent donation of a piece of playground equipment called a Tidal Wave. The donation was one of four projects by the club's foundation.

Doug Marr, a member of the club, said the club spent a little more than $18,000 on the Tidal Wave addition at the school's impressive playground. The school's principal, Courtney Coburn, said the Tidal Wave has been extremely popular among Virginia School's special needs students since it was installed several weeks ago — the school serves students from preschool through age 22.

"They love it. It's the movement, it moves like water, like a tidal wave, so it gives them some really good sensory input," Coburn said. "When they're on it, they can move safely on it. As well it's pretty low to the ground, so that they can jump off and get some of that nice sensory impact from it. It's just really a universal piece of equipment for our students here. ... Every one of the age ranges uses this piece of equipment."

Along with the Tidal Wave, Coburn said there are other pieces of playground equipment at the school that offer sensory experiences and additional safety for the students.

Coburn said her students started using the Tidal Wave as soon as it was delivered and put in place.

"As soon as they finished installing it ... the kids were out here and on it," Coburn said. "Normally we have a lot of kids on it. We have some of our little kids that will run on it."

Coburn said having the Tidal Wave at the school allows her students to have "access to play on a piece of equipment that brings joy and pleasure. Not all equipment is user-friendly for special needs kids, but that's what we strive for out here in the playground, is that everything is user-friendly for special needs kids."

Coburn said other equipment the school would like to add on the playground is more adaptive swings.

"Swings are the pieces that our students really really enjoy the movement of swings. And so we would be looking to add another bank of adaptive swings," Coburn said.

Coburn said it's important to have sensory equipment available to students because that input will allow them to more easily do their work.

"It helps to make them more successful, to be able to engage in academic tasks," she said.

Along with a ribbon cutting ceremony celebrating the addition of the Tidal Wave at Virginia School, members of the Rotary Club of Marysville, including Santa Claus, visited different classrooms to deliver wrapped gifts to each student.

Many of the students were overjoyed at the visit and several were more than willing to give Santa a big hug for his efforts in delivering holiday cheer.