‘It’s Going To Be Huge’: Town Women Found Group To Help Acquire New Playground Structures, Rubber Surfacing for Mead

New Canaan residents Allyson Mahoney and Monica Chimera say that Mead Park absolutely is the right place for a great playground. On moving to town six-plus years ago, each of the New Canaan moms—Mahoney has two boys, 5 and 7, and Chimera an 8-year-old girl and two boys, 5 and 2—found that the playground beyond the little league outfields at Mead served as a “point of entry” where they met other mothers and their children met other kids. The Apple Cart at Mead Park Lodge serves as an ideal eatery for young families on-the-go, and Chimera said her kids love waving at dad as his Metro-North Railroad train returned from the city, watching as it passed visibly above a wooded hill to the east. Yet the existing, 20-year-old play structure, well past its useful life, is showing its age. Though the town has done “an outstanding job” of patching it up to make it usable, Mahoney said, slides have required replacement, one piece of Plexiglass has popped out more than once (sometimes replaced temporarily by a piece of wood) and the wood chips that surround the area are not ideal.