PlayaRaya is a play on the words “play your way,” according to Rabbi Yudy Shemtov. It’s also the working name for the rabbi’s recreational facility to accommodate kids with special needs, where everyone will be able to do just that.
Shemtov, the senior rabbi of The Shul at Newtown, a division of the Lubavitch of Bucks County, is building a park and recreational facility on the long-abandoned site of the former Breezy Point Swim Club in Langhorne. The park and recreational facility is a project of the Lubavitch of Bucks County through its Friendship Circle division.
A donor gift allowed the rabbi to purchase the 12-acre site for $729,000 in 2022, after it had been tangled up in family litigation for about 12 years.
The rabbi has already raised over $1 million toward building the new park, and he expects to open the pool, pool building, ball pit and splash pad by the summer of 2026. That part is easier, as the property is already zoned as a swim club.
Part two will be a little more difficult. Shemtov hopes to raise about $6 million more to add walking trails, fitness stations, playgrounds, pickleball courts and possibly equestrian facilities. There’s no timeline yet for that part of the project.
All Shemtov knows for certain at this point is that everything in the park will be accessible. A play area won’t have ramps in addition to steps, for example. There will only be ramps.
“Accessibility’s not an afterthought. It’s the core,” Shemtov said.
Shemtov sees this as an extension of the work that The Shul does through the Friendship Circle, its organization that connects teen and adult volunteers to children and young adults with special needs.
He initially found the Langhorne property because he was looking for a pool for his summer camps. But over time, he began to see it as the perfect antidote to a trend he noticed during COVID: Families lacked an outdoor facility that would serve both kids with special needs and children without.
Most outdoor parks were either constructed specifically for kids with special needs or had no accessibility built in. The former Breezy Point Swim Club site gave Shemtov a vision for changing that.
“I realized that our camp is only 25 days a year. But what do you do for the other 340 days?” he said of the property.
Shemtov wants to be clear: The entire facility will be open to all. It will just have the kinds of subtle accommodations, like those ramps, that children with special needs require.
Often, they are too subtle to even notice: A splash pad, for example, needs to have water at a certain temperature to avoid upsetting kids who are on the autism spectrum.
“The entire family can be there together,” the rabbi said.
But such accommodations cost money. That’s why Shemtov still needs to raise so much more.
So far, he’s tapping into foundations, donors and state grants. His phase two projects are also being reviewed by Northampton Township because the property isn’t zoned for them at the moment.
“I know I need at least another $5-6 million,” he said.
The rabbi, though, is confident that he can raise that. Momentum is building for the facility. Organizations and institutions that work in the special needs community, including the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, have been lining up as potential partners for its use.
“This will expand the Friendship Circle to a completely different level. What’s happening now is it’s become more than a pool and recreational space. We’re collaborating with CHOP and other organizations and institutions in the special needs and physical therapy community. They need spaces to do therapies,” Shemtov said. “We’re going to have trails; we’re going to have sports fields; we’re going to have treehouses and fishing. I’m opening the space for special needs and disability servicing so they can use it.”
Once the facility is up and running, Shemtov plans to publish his plans so other developers can follow them. He envisions a new model for inclusivity, one that doesn’t make it an add-on or an obvious difference.
“It now becomes a subtle education to people that we are all alike,” he said.