Community

In 2012 Shawn and Amanda Bakker, owners of Bakker Construction, founded the Tatums Garden Foundation in honor of their Daughter Tatum who was born with Spina Bifida.  We understood that childhood is an important time, filled with critical opportunities to interact socially and strengthen the imagination. Unfortunately, special needs children are often excluded from activities when facilities are not capable of accommodating those with disabilities. Being parent’s to a special needs child, we made it our mission to give all children a place to play, grow, and learn together. 

This is why we worked so hard to bring our vision for Tatum’s Garden, Monterey County’s first all-inclusive playground, to life. It was truly a full community effort, from fundraising and design, to the actual community build (bringing thousands of people together to build the playground from the ground up).

We started the Tatum’s Garden Foundation to design, build and provide full time private care and maintenance of the park, and are now working to bring more accessible playgrounds to our community, with the next, Tatum’s Treehouse, slated for Carmel Valley. We hope to open the park, with another community build, in 2023.

Click here to read Amanda’s gracious letter to our community on the eve of the original build.”