High Life : A WEEKLY FORUM FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS : Playground Will Cater to Handicapped

Three years after the idea was proposed by the Kiwanis Club of Santa Ana the plan is being put into action: A park is being built within Thornton Park on Segerstrom Avenue to provide a playground for handicapped children, where basketball courts have adjustable hoops and swings can accommodate wheelchairs.

The Kiwanis Club proposed the 6 1/2-acre, “barrier-free” facility after members had worked with students at Santa Ana’s Carl Harvey School for physically handicapped children.

Located on a grassy, 30-acre stretch of land in the park’s northern section, the facility will include two basketball courts, a playground, special trails to the park’s lake and a camping area with bathrooms accessible to the handicapped.

The Kiwanis Club will not be able to fund the project by itself and is seeking the support of other organizations. The estimated cost of the park, according to club president Angel Rivas, is at least $300,000, most of which will go into buying playground equipment.

“There’s no park like this in the county,” Rivas said. “Once this is built, handicapped kids from throughout the county can come here and play.”

The South Coast Symphony Youth Orchestra in residence at the Orange County High School of the Arts is currently seeking talented young musicians to participate in the group’s coming international tour to East and West Berlin.

The ensemble, under the direction of Scott Speck, will leave next summer for a 10-day trip, which includes concerts on both sides of the crumbled Berlin Wall, as well as other picturesque locations around Germany.

This will mark the second international tour for the group. Last year’s season included a four-concert trip to Quebec, Canada. The group and its members have also performed at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion of the Los Angeles Music Center.

Now in its 17th season, the South Coast Symphony Youth Orchestra joined OCHSA on the Marina High School campus in Huntington Beach in 1988. In addition to its weekly rehearsals, orchestra members have the option of attending chamber orchestra practice, advanced sectional rehearsals taught by professional orchestra musicians and classes in music history, theory, orchestration, composition and conducting--all free.

For information about the orchestra or to schedule an audition, contact OCHSA at (213) 596-1435.

“You can’t measure time in days the way you can money in dollars because every day is different.”--Jorge Luis Borges, Argentine author