Whether physically challenged, mentally challenged or able-bodied, all children love to play. Now, the official opening of Toronto’s Neshama Playground will ensure that they can.

The playground, in Oriole Park, is the first of its kind in Canada. All the equipment is specially designed and chosen to allow children of all abilities to play.

The idea for the playground was inspired by one like it in Maryland. After many years of fundraising, construction and legal hurdles, a Toronto steering committee finally opened the playground late last summer.

Saturday at 10:30 a.m., there will be an official celebration of the long-awaited playground, which committee member Brendan Caldwell says is already popular.

“It’s a marvelously fun park, even if you have full mobility and full cognitive mobility,” he said.

“But for kids that do, it just enables them to play side-by-each with kids that don’t — and break down those barriers.”

Caldwell said he hoped the playground’s accessible features — including a soft but solid ground surface for children in wheelchairs, and sensory toys for children with autism — would someday become the norm.

“We’re really hoping that this city and other cities, when they design playgrounds going forward, take some of the lessons of Neshama and do even better,” he said.

Friends of Jeff Healey are already raising funds to retrofit a west-end playground in the Humber Bay area, named in memory of the Canadian jazz legend, to become more accessible.

Another innovative park, Toronto’s Underpass Park, officially opened earlier this month. It makes use of the space under the Eastern Ave. and Richmond/Adelaide ramps from the Don Valley Parkway.