By Olivia DeWan, contributor
Rockingham County celebrated the grand opening of the new Sensory Room located in Rockingham County Recreation Center late last month.
Sensory rooms are designed to help individuals reduce stress and are commonly used in therapeutic and educational settings. The Rockingham Sensory Room was created to provide a calming, accessible environment for children with sensory sensitivities, autism and other special needs.
Leila Longcor, the Rockingham County District 4 Supervisor, championed the creation of the Sensory Room. Longcor, who has a son with autism and another who is a Division I All-American football player, said she saw a need for spaces in the community for children with special needs to be included.
“When we were building the Rec [Recreation] Center I knew that this facility needed to represent everyone,” Longcor said. “I knew our special needs kids don’t always have a voice, and I had to be that voice for them.”
Longcor said she recalls watching her oldest son play in tournaments at the Recreation Center, and wishing there was “a quiet” space for her son with Autism to enjoy.
Longcor took her idea and turned it into reality with the help of private and public donors, developing the forest-themed Sensory Room for the community to utilize.
“If you’re at Rockingham Park, and you look all around at the mountains, that’s truly what you see,” Longcor said. “The animals and the colors of nature are so calming to kids on the spectrum, and even to athletes.”
The Sensory Room is equipped with glowing trees and fiber optic lights that fall like vines. A projector displays different games, challenges and videos on the back wall, while countless activities are built into the space. A play deck offers a slide and room to climb and explore.
“It can have an instant calming presence,” Longcor said. “We were adamant that it [the room] serves all of our special needs kids so that they can come even in a wheelchair and there are things for them to do.”
Puzzles, electronic games, and interactive lights ensure that any child could enjoy the space.
“We did a soft opening and had Chris Dodson, the special education teacher at Spotswood High School, who runs an amazing program, bring his kids over to try it out,” Longcor said. “To me, he hands down had the best quote. He said, “Thank you so much for building our kids their very own Kings Dominion.”
Dodson partnered with Longcor throughout the process of creating the Sensory Room to produce the best space possible for the local community’s special needs children.
“We found that in the room, there is something for everyone,” Dodson said. “We have a couple kids that are very physically disabled, and I’ve been amazed to see how much movement and interaction we’ve gotten from them.”
Dodson said families of special needs children are already trying to rent the Sensory Room out for birthday parties and other events.
“I feel like I’m walking into Avatar when I’m in the Sensory Room,” Dodson said. “I was amazed.”
In 1995, Dodson attempted to build a Sensory Room with Sentara, but the plans never came to completion. Dodson said that with his lifetime in special education, seeing Rockingham County get a Sensory Room to meet the needs of special education students was special.
“To be able to provide opportunities for our kids to be like everyone else is my whole deal,” Dodson said. “At Rockingham’s Sensory Room and the playground, which is so handicap accessible, there are opportunities for our kids that were never there 43 years ago.”
To use the Sensory Room, registration can be done online. Families, schools and community groups can reserve time slots through the county’s Parks and Recreation website, with sessions designed to provide a safe and structured environment for participants. Many schools and teachers like Dodson have utilized the Sensory Room as a frequent field trip opportunity for their special needs students.
“If we look back 15 years ago, nothing like this existed except at John Hopkins,” Longcor said. “Once the Rec Center was coming to fruition, I knew that was something that needed to happen here so we could serve our kids.”
Kirby Dean, the director of Parks and Recreation at Rockingham County, said the creation of the Sensory Room was a very collaborative process designed with School Specialty, a provider of educational supplies and custom learning environments.
“I think this room is a microcosm of what the whole facility is about,” Dean said. “We wanted to build this facility to help and benefit as many people as we could.”
And, as Longcor explained, the facility’s impact is rooted in the generosity of the community that helped bring it to life.
“It’s an absolute gift, and I think it’s a testament of the community coming together,” Longcor said. “As soon as we started making phone calls to help fund the room, the answer was yes, and we received an immediate check. This was from Buc-ee’s, to Sentara, and construction companies. There were so many people who just said ‘yes’ when we asked.”
That spirit of giving, Dodson said, is already making a meaningful difference for children and their parents.
“For me, it just makes me proud of our community for standing up and providing opportunities for our kids,” Dodson said. “People will never know what it truly means since they can’t be in those parents’ heads. They are so excited to see things happening for their children.”
Thanks for reading The Citizen, which won the Virginia Press Association’s 2022 News Sweepstakes award as the top online news site in Virginia. We’re independent. We’re local. We pay our contributors, and the money you give goes directly to the reporting. No overhead. No printing costs. Just facts, stories and context. We value your support.
