WENDELL - Just a few hundred clicks on a keypad or an extra text a day could soon lead to a new playground for youngsters with disabilities.

Teachers in the exceptional children's department at Carver Elementary School applied for a grant with Clorox to create an adapted playground for their students with disabilities. To win the grant, the school needs supporters to vote for their project.

Carver Elementary offers a regional program for children with a variety of physical and cognitive disabilities, said special education teacher Jennifer Honeycutt. Students the school serves include those with cerebral palsy, traumatic brain injury and autism, Honeycutt said.

Eighteen of those children are in the school's self-contained classroom.

Clorox is offering five grants this year - four cash grants of $25,000 and one $50,000 prize - to the projects that receive the most votes.

Right now, Honeycutt's students are limited to using the school's preschool playground, but the teachers envision a new playground, which includes wheelchair accessible areas, swings with seatbelts and high backs, as well as stations that can be used to stimulate auditory and tactile senses. The project could also include an adapted merry go round.

"I know it will take an excess of $50,000," Honeycutt said. The project will also include a fence to surround the play area, and equipment used is specialized, and therefore more expensive, she said.

Details shared on the Clorox website about the project explain that the more severely disabled children at Carver simply can't function like other students.

"(They) do not possess the body control or capability to grasp (what) is necessary to swing on a typical swing. Those in wheelchairs are unable to sit and play in a sandbox. Our students often have sensory processing disorders and require deeper pressure, louder or softer sounds, various textures and tactile stimulating experiences," the description reads.

"We're trying to get the word out to as many people as we can," Honeycutt said.

Contest winners will be announced in January. If Carver wins, teachers will plan a meeting with Wake County school administrators to implement the project and create a timeline.

Honeycutt said she'd like to see a new playground in time for the start of school next year.