But there she was on Oct. 6, just off the 18th green at the Heritage Club, sitting under a tent, her body covered with blankets and coats, greeting every player in the Master’s Mission, a charity golf event. On a gloomy day, Elley Ferrell was a ray of sunshine.
She met every golfer with a smile and a handful of candy. Her father, the Rev. Lamar Ferrell, and mother, Maryanne, were there for every shot too.
Her father described the inclement weather “an Elley day. It’s doesn’t matter what’s going on. She was a good representative for what we do. She knows that life doesn’t always give you sunshine.”
He called the adverse conditions fitting because every day is a challenge raising a child with special needs. Elley Ferrell was born 12 years ago with spina bifida. She’s a sixth-grader at Highview Center in Middletown.
If you’ve only seen Elley, you see her as the girl in the wheelchair. But she’s so much more. She’s also an inspiration to anyone who meets her. Think you’re having a bad day, introduce yourself in Elley. She will wash your troubles away. Probably say a prayer too.
So when Berachah Baptist Church in Middletown, where her father pastors, decided to build a handicap-accessible playground next summer at Lefferson Park, no wonder the committee immediately thought of Elley. It will be named Elley’s Hope Playground Park. If your heart is as cold as last winter, be there on dedication day. Bring tissues and blame it on your allergies.
The goal of Berachah Baptist every summer is to renovate a Middletown home as part of its “Hands and Feet” Mission. Next year, that mission will take place at Lefferson Park, right here in our back yard. By this time next year, a 15,000-square-foot playground will be open, a destination for children with varying needs and ability levels. Ground is expected to be broken by May 2015, and the first smiles are expected to take place by the end of September 2015.
In Butler and Warren counties, more than 10,000 children with disabilities are unable to use a traditional playground, said the Rev. Clark Helvey, a minister at Berachah. He said a church committee met with the Middletown Park Board who gave the church its “blessing.”
The playground is expected to include 14 pieces of equipment and cost $140,000 to $150,000. He said the church has more than $30,000 earmarked for the playground, mostly funds from its annual golf tournament. The church is soliciting areas businesses and organizations, and is applying for grants.
The goal of the playground, he said, is to provide children with disabilities “a little bit of fun that we take for granted. You know, give them a piece of normal life.”
I asked the Rev. Helvey what he thinks of when he sees Elley sitting in her wheelchair.
“How do I describe that, Rick,” he said. “So many thoughts flood my mind.”
He paused for a few seconds.
“I think of someone who is so sweet, so gracious and someone who has no regret of her disability,” he said. “She’s very accepting of her position in life. Only God could make someone accept that and say, ‘I am OK with who I am.’”
The Rev. Ferrell said not one day goes by that he isn’t impressed by his daughter and her unflappable desire. She has befriended a girl in her class. The girl is blind.
“She is an encourager,” the Rev. Ferrell said. “She never complains. She has a lot she could complain about.”
Why is this Elley’s personality?
“She never has known anything different,” her father said. “She wakes up every day and says, ‘Is today church?’ She loves to be spiritual. She loves the Lord very much.”
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