Gloucester County just turned a vacant T-ball field into its first playground designed for children with disabilities
Finn, an 8-year-old Williamstown resident with autism, needed a better place to play. Monroe Township just opened an accessible park named after him.
Anthony Iovino, a lifelong resident of Williamstown, realized during the COVID-19 pandemic that Gloucester County needed a new playground.
His son, Finn, was diagnosed with autism at 2 years old, and with the world shut down, Iovino’s family quickly taught themselves how to support Finn from home.
“So then you learn that one of the most essential therapies for kids with special needs is play,” Iovino, 51, said. “And there really wasn’t a space for kids with special needs.”
Now Finn is 8, and an accessible playground named in his honor has finally opened to the public. It sits between the baseball fields and basketball courts off Church Street in Monroe Township, by Pfeiffer Community Center.
Finn’s Friends Park hosted its ribbon-cutting on June 29, where Finn gave a speech to thank families for coming.
“I’m very happy that this park is done because, like, it’s a special memory I think I’m going to remember forever,” Finn said.
The project to revamp an old T-ball field into an autism and mobility-friendly playground was a collaborative effort between Monroe Township and Finn’s Friends, an autism awareness nonprofit run by Iovino and founded in 2024.
Iovino, a local real estate broker and owner of Cocaboni’s Cafe in Williamstown, said he approached Monroe Township Council a few years ago about the project, and Monroe officials agreed right away.
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Mayor Greg Wolfe said Monroe has some other parks with limited-accessibility features, but none to the scale of Finn’s Friends.
The new playground uses rubberized flooring rather than mulch to allow mobility aids, wheelchairs, and strollers to move smoothly, along with concrete pathways throughout. For children with sensory needs, the playground features musical equipment, canopies for shade, and lots of texture and color. Educational panels built into the playground teach kids sign language and Braille. The playground is fenced in, a first for Monroe, to keep children who tend to wander inside.
“I hope that everybody utilizes it,” Wolfe said. “I hope that it draws children from other communities who might not have access to a park like this.”
Most of the $1 million project was funded by a $750,000 state grant awarded in 2024 by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection’s Green Acres Program. The rest of the money came from the township’s capital improvement fund budgeted for parks.
Jake’s Law, a 2018 state law supporting all-inclusive parks, made the grant possible. Jake’s Place, an accessible playground in Cherry Hill named after Jacob Cummings-Nasto of Voorhees, inspired the law. Cummings-Nasto, who enjoyed the playground despite his own physical limitations, died at 2 from a cardiac medical condition.
On Thursday morning, the humidity and air quality warnings didn’t stop about a dozen children from playing at Finn’s Friends Park. Lindsey Truong, 29, of Deptford, hung out with her family at the park for about a half hour after a visit to the local farmer’s market. She said her kids, Amelia, 3, and Tristan, 1, enjoyed the musical elements and the shade, and felt safe there as compared to other playgrounds in the region.
Teresa Casey, 65, of Williamstown, brought her four grandkids to the playground, too. Even though Casey lives down the street from Mary Mazza Duffy Memorial Park, she said she’s started bringing the kids to Finn’s Friends instead.
“We used to go there, but everybody comes here now, so there’s hardly any kids there to play with,” Casey said. “If there’s a playground around, we’ve hit it, but right now, this is their go-to spot.”
There is still work to do. Finn’s Friends is fundraising through sponsored golf outings and engraved brick sales to build an archway at the entrance, and the nonprofit is hoping to eventually add a pavilion and bathrooms by the playground. So far, Iovino said Finn’s Friends has raised about $50,000 for the park.
To maintain the park, Wolfe said the nonprofit is also raising money to go into a trust account through the township.
Other Jake’s Law-funded playgrounds already exist in South Jersey, but Wolfe said the park is a first for Gloucester County.
Washington Township received the same grant as Monroe in 2024 for an all-inclusive park project at Washington Lake Park, but that work is still in progress.
“Hopefully when they’re there, we can get over there and support them,” Iovino said. “The more the merrier.”