Township’s first dog park and handicap-accessible playground

It’s a dual project nearly three years in the making, and two Girl Scouts have their eye on the finish line: North Whitehall Township’s first dog park and a nearby handicap-accessible playground, coronavirus or not.

They reached a crucial turning point at a virtual meeting this week, where the board of supervisors awarded a bid to Semmel Excavating of Allentown for $119,303 to begin construction at Kolapechka Park, targeted for late May and finishing in late July.

“Does anyone in the audience have any comments?” a masked township Manager Christopher Garges asked a WebEx audience Monday night.

In the background on a microphone, a dog started barking.

“Somebody’s dog does,” a caller remarked.

Keaira Lutz and Katie Mericle, a junior and senior at Parkland High School, initially had two separate ideas for their Gold Award projects — the equivalent of the Eagle project in Boy Scouts — that they quickly realized would make sense together.

Lutz sees friends walking dogs along the roads of North Whitehall Township, not exactly a sidewalk community, and wanted to build something that could help them play safely. She has three dogs herself, and picked up a job at Colonial Kennel in Whitehall Township in the fall to try to better learn her future clientele.

Mericle, who has cerebral palsy, wanted to create a playground that kids like her could enjoy. She never really played on traditional playgrounds, the mulch being difficult to navigate in a wheelchair and traditional swings requiring too much balance.

“I wanted to make sure other kids younger than me don’t experience that, because you get left out,” she said.

The two have been friends since middle school. Once Lutz entered high school, they both started brainstorming these ideas, realizing they made the ideal pairing.

“Service dogs can have fun and play with other dogs while being close to their kids,” Lutz explained.