As a child, Arthur Aston couldn’t play on a playground with his peers. He never climbed on the monkey bars, swooshed down the slide, or felt the wind in his hair as he stood feet above the rest at the very top of a jungle gym.
It’s not that he didn’t want to traverse playgrounds with his friends, exploring all they had to offer, but Aston physically could not get on the equipment.
Aston was born with spina bifida, a congenital disability that occurs when the spine and spinal cord don’t form properly. Spina bifida can result in physical and intellectual disabilities that range from mild to severe. Aston experienced physical disabilities and has been using crutches and wheelchairs since childhood.
Mobility devices were integral in allowing Aston access to the world, but he quickly found that the world wasn’t set up for such devices — including playgrounds. The playground equipment was inaccessible, so Aston was forced to sit aside as a spectator while other children interacted and played.
But later in life, Aston was given the opportunity to change this reality.
Aston, now 40, helped build the first two accessible playgrounds in the state of New Jersey; they were built in Cherry Hill and Delran by an organization called Build Jake’s Place. And now, as the organization’s executive director, Aston provides assistance and counsel to other counties in the state working to build inclusive playgrounds.
“When you think of a playground, you think of children. And I thought of that, of course. But then I also thought, what about parents with disabilities who have children?” Aston said.
“So these playgrounds are places where children with disabilities can play, and adults with disabilities can play with their kids. I don’t have kids, but if I’m there with my friend’s kids, I don’t have to sit and watch them play. I can get on this playground and play with them.”
Building accessible playgrounds is just part of Aston’s advocacy.
His work to change how the world views disability began over a decade ago.
His advocacy began after picking his nephew up from school. Classmates of his nephew stared at Aston. As he describes it, those stares left his nephew frustrated and furious, ready to ‘tell them off’ before Aston intervened.
“I said, ‘Thanks, but you don’t need to do that.’ I said, ‘You need to tell them who I am, you know, about my spina bifida. Tell them why I use crutches and a wheelchair, but also tell them that I drive and that we travel,'” he said.“I told him, ‘They look at me because it’s different to them. You see me every day, right? They don’t see someone in their life daily with a disability. So you have to educate them.’
“And that moment is when I realized, oh my goodness, that’s why kids stare at me, because they don’t see someone with a disability all the time.”
This interaction gave Aston an idea: he wanted to speak to students about his life and disability. He started by reaching out to friends who worked in education to see if he could present to their classes.
Around the same time, Aston traveled to a concert at a stadium, where he experienced inaccessibility from the time he got off the train.
“I was talking with my friend, and she said, ‘Oh my goodness, with the stuff that you’re doing for schools, you can also do seminars for businesses.'” Aston said. “‘And you can show everybody what it’s like from your view of living with a disability.’
“And she goes, ‘Oh my gosh, you can call it Our View.’”
And that is how Aston’s organization Our View was born. Our View was officially founded in 2010 to educate and raise awareness about people with disabilities. The organization provides a series of customized assemblies for students from kindergarten through college and workshops and training for companies.
“I want to change the tone of the conversation about disabilities, to make disabilities not such a scary or negative thing for people,” Aston said. “I want to let them see that people like myself and others who live with all types of disabilities, visible and invisible, that we’re out here, we’re living life, and we travel, we shop in your stores, we go to your movies and malls and all of those things.
“It’s nothing to be negative about, and it’s not something that you need to feel sorry for us.”
Since its inception, Our View has worked with schools and companies all around New Jersey, educating students and employees and providing expertise on accessibility. But in 2020, the training came to a halt with the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Aston is working on getting back into classrooms and businesses, but in the meantime, he created an Our View podcast to continue telling disability stories. With 87 episodes under his belt, his listeners are exposed to people with disabilities and their stories.
When he’s not podcasting, Aston continues to work as the executive director for Build Jake’s Place, a position he’s held since 2013. He’s been a part of the organization since 2010.
Build Jake’s Place is a nonprofit that honors Jacob Myles Cummings-Nasto, or “Baby Jake.” Jake was born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, a congenital disability that affects normal blood flow through the heart. He died 15 years ago, at just two-and-a-half years old.
After Jake’s death, family friends donated $6,000 in his memory.
The family decided to use the money to create a specially designed all-inclusive playground based on their belief that every child deserves a chance to play, regardless of physical limitations. (While Jake was alive, his illness kept him from accessing many components of a typical playground.)
At the time, inclusive playgrounds were called boundless playgrounds; there were only 200 in the country.
“We put a board together, got 501(c)(3) nonprofit status and began fundraising. We had to raise $700,000 to build the first playground, so it took us four years to do that, but it got done,” said Lynn Cummings, co-founder of Build Jake’s Place and Jake’s grandmother.
The first inclusive playground they built was in Cherry Hill, N.J.
Soon after, the nonprofit was approached by officials in Delran, a Burlington County, N.J. township. They wanted to build an inclusive playground too. So Build Jake’s Place started fundraising and four years later built another accessible playground in South Jersey.
From there, Cummings, her husband, daughter, and son-in-law began advocating for a state law to ensure inclusive playgrounds were built throughout the state. In 2018, N.J. Governor Phil Murphy signed “Jake’s Law,” a law that incentivizes counties to build inclusive playgrounds for people and children with disabilities.
In a press release, Gov. Murphy said, “No child should lack access to playgrounds based on their physical abilities. I am proud that New Jersey is leading by example as an inclusive state through this act, ensuring our great state is a place that welcomes all nine million of us.”
According to the press release, “Counties that submit applications to build inclusive playgrounds similar to Jake’s Place will be prioritized in Green Acre funding. In addition, in consultation with the Department of Education, the Department of Community Affairs will create rules and regulations for the design, installation, inspection, and maintenance of the inclusive playgrounds.”
After “Jake’s Law” was implemented, Build Jake’s Place changed to provide advocacy and consulting services. Right now, they are working with Vineland, Voorhees, Woodbine, Robbinsville, Clayton, and Winslow, towns in N.J., as they build inclusive playgrounds.
Cummings met Aston during one of the nonprofit’s first 5K fundraisers for the Cherry Hill playground. Aston attended and brought dozens of family and friends for the walk/run. Then, later that year, Aston participated in the building of their first inclusive park.
“When we all got on there, I looked back at Art and said, ‘Is this the first time you’ve ever been on a playground?’ And he said to me, ‘I’ve been on playgrounds, but it’s the first time I’ve ever been on the apparatus,'” Cummings said.
“And so that puts a face to the story. Suddenly, here’s a real-life person in his wheelchair who is high off the ground on this playground that we just built that had a ramp that let him get up there.”
Cummings asked Aston to be on the Build Jake’s Place board. But he soon rose through the ranks to become executive director.
Aston also helped the nonprofit build a Miracle League baseball field next to the Cherry Hill playground location. Miracle League fields are baseball fields explicitly designed for people with disabilities; the fields are custom-designed, rubberized turf field that accommodates wheelchairs and other assistive devices.
Aston also serves as the general manager for the Camden County Miracle League baseball team. The team has a major and minor league and serves players of all ages.
Through his work, Aston hopes to make a monumental change. Specifically, one of his dreams is to advocate for the improvement of the Americans With Disabilities Act, which hasn’t been updated since it was signed into law in 1990.
“I’m just so passionate about having people see those who have disabilities as everyone else,” he said.