Jefferson Parish leaders and the family of Rylee Grace Pizani cut the ribbon on a new inclusionary playground at Parc des Familles in Marrero, marking the first facility of its kind on the West Bank. Built for children ages 2 to 12 with intellectual and physical disabilities, the playground allows wheelchair travel throughout the tot lot and includes sensory-friendly spaces, communication tools, and spots where wheelchair users can spin around and hook themselves in place.
The playground is called Rylee's Place, named for Rylee Grace Pizani, a Marrero teenager who died in 2024 after a six-year battle with cancer, according to WDSU. Pizani was diagnosed with cancer at age 13 and was remembered at the ceremony as a bright light who loved arts and crafts and animals. Her obituary, published by Dignity Memorial, notes she was born July 15, 2004, in Marrero and passed away on March 27, 2024, at age 19 surrounded by family, following treatment at Tulane Hospital in New Orleans and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis.
Rylee's mother, Lindsey Pizani, said the playground's name was a surprise that left her speechless, and that her daughter would have been proud of it, the station's report states. Rylee's family attended the ribbon-cutting, where the playground was described as a permanent memorial to her memory.
A Councilman's Personal Stake in Accessible Play
District 1 Councilman Tim Kerner Jr. spearheaded the project and said West Bank children should not have to travel to access an inclusionary playground, per the same account. Kerner has publicly shared that his advocacy for inclusive play spaces traces back to a childhood Head Start friend who used a wheelchair after a four-wheeler accident, a story he recounted in a September Facebook post. He has said that early experience reinforced his goal that no child should be left on the sidelines.
Parc des Familles itself is a sprawling, 600-acre parish recreation complex at 6101 Leo Kerner Lafitte Parkway, home to a 2,000-foot elevated cypress swamp boardwalk, two dog parks, a 5.15-mile mountain bike trail, a splash park, and the Grand Cypress Bayou disc golf course, according to prior Hoodline reporting. The 600-acre site is now also slated to open new outdoor pickleball courts in early 2027 as part of an ongoing master plan expansion presented to Marrero residents at an August town hall, according to a Facebook post detailing the plan unveiled at Estelle Gym.
Funding Secured Through State and Parish Partnership
Jefferson Parish Council District 1, working alongside Louisiana State Representative Timothy Kerner Sr. and State Senator Patrick Connick, secured nearly $4 million in state and parish funding over the past year for capital projects and operational support at Parc des Familles. Parc des Familles Advisory Board Chairman Glenn Julia detailed that funding at a Westbank town hall, according to a Facebook post from the event.
The investment fits into a broader pattern of parish spending on park infrastructure. Jefferson Parish has carried out other multi-million-dollar modernizations across its system, including a $3 million synthetic turf project at Lafreniere Park and the $45 million John A. Alario Jr. Youth Sports Complex in Avondale, which opened in January, as previously reported by Hoodline.
Part of a Parishwide Push for Inclusive Play
Rylee's Place joins a growing list of adaptive playgrounds taking shape across Jefferson Parish. Lafreniere Park in Metairie already has its own inclusionary playground, known as Tripp's Treehouse, which was designed with parallel play structures, sensory engagement tools, and graduated complexity levels so children of varying physical and cognitive abilities can play side by side, per Jefferson Parish Government.
Two more inclusive playgrounds are currently under construction in Harahan and Kenner, per WDSU's report. The City of Harahan broke ground in July on a 9,000-square-foot inclusive playground at Park of Heroes, certified by inclusive play consultancy Let Kids Play and built to support more than 136 concurrent users of varying abilities, with synthetic turf surfacing and full fencing. Meanwhile, Jefferson Parish and Kenner officials broke ground in August on the Laketown Inclusionary Playground along Lake Pontchartrain, which parish leaders have described as the largest inclusive playground in the American South; Parish President Cynthia Lee Sheng attended that groundbreaking alongside local leadership.
The push reflects a documented need. Roughly 32,000 Jefferson Parish residents live with a physical, intellectual, or developmental disability — about 1 in every 13 residents — according to estimates Councilwoman Arita Bohannan cited in a November 2024 WWL-TV report. Bohannan has said her own advocacy for adaptive play was shaped by her nephew, who is on the autism spectrum.
For the Pizani family, the new playground stands as something more personal than a policy milestone. It carries Rylee's name into a space built so that, as Kerner put it, no child is left watching from the sidelines.
