SODA SPRINGS — After two years of dreaming, planning and finally doing, members of both the nonprofit group Friends of the Soda Springs City Park and the Soda Springs community were able to enjoy the all-access Caribou CommUNITY Playground on Monday afternoon.

During a sponsor open house from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m, people of all ages enjoyed the brand new playground, which features an area for children ages 2 to 5 and an area for children ages 5 to 12.

The playground has springy rubber surfacing to protect children from falls, as well as an all-access merry-go-round, therapuetic swings for children who are unable to sit up on their own and sensory panels for children with autism and other sensory disorders.

It also features hand-painted animals and handprint tiles all along the inside walls. In fact, everything in the playground was hand-painted and hand-built.

According to Danielle Stoor, one of the mothers who was first involved with the project, more than 1,000 people from both Soda Springs and the surrounding communities came to a number of build days to help the playground come to life.

Daniel See, the outreach liaison for Portneuf Medical Center, and Jackie Lester, the public relations coordinator for Caribou Memorial Hospital, both said members of the hospitals’ medical teams assisted in building the playground.

“From Portneuf’s perspective, we didn’t want to just write a check and say, ‘Here, good luck, and I hope you finish,’” See said. “We wanted to come out and actually put hands on it.”

Lester said Caribou Memorial Hospital wanted to support their community.

“We love our community, and this group has worked so hard,” Lester said. “We wanted to do everything we could to help them out and facilitate their needs to make sure their dreams and all their hard work came to fruition.”

After the open house, a ribbon-cutting ceremony was held where Georgia Brown and Laura Lind, the project co-coordinators, both addressed the crowd, thanking the community for their efforts in putting the park together.

Austin Robinson, the mayor of Soda Springs, also spoke and named Brown and Lind “Superheroes of Soda Springs.”

Despite the open house and ribbon-cutting ceremony, the park is not 100 percent finished. The opening of the playground came a month later than expected due to equipment delays. Lind said they decided to open the park as it was, but they are still missing the teeter totter and a few pieces of art.

Kids didn’t seem to mind, however, as they took full advantage of the hamster wheel, spinning nest, rock climbing wall, slides and other features of the playground on Monday. One of the largest pieces, a toy combine, was made to the special request of 9-year-old Aiden Carroll, a disabled child who lives in Soda Springs.

Carroll was born with a birth defect that caused him to have both feet amputated at 16 months old. At the playground’s opening, Carroll ran around on his prosthetic legs, climbing up stairs, sliding down slides and enjoying the combine made in his honor.

But the playground, which was modeled after Brooklyn’s Playground in Pocatello, is for more than just disabled and special needs children.

“(Brooklyn’s Playground) has been a great asset for the entire county, really, and when we heard that Caribou wanted to do something similar, we wanted in because it’s such a good tool for kids to use to be active,” See said. “It’s a good way for them to enjoy themselves and stay healthy.”