Father of handicapped child raises funds for all-accessible playground via TikTok

NORWALK — Travis Hipp, a Norwalk resident with more than 123,000 followers on the social media app TikTok, is using his platform to raise funds for new playground equipment in the city of Norwalk. He goes by the username TravisHipp13 on the app posted a video on Wednesday hoping to raise money for new playground equipment in Norwalk. Right now he says that he has raised $590 in donations to his Venmo account. Hipp has a handicapped son also named Travis, and has been advocating and working with the city of Norwalk to install handicap-accessible playground equipment in Norwalk. That goal has been realized but, Hipp wants to keep pushing, not only for his own child but to get all kids back at parks in Norwalk. "I just wanted to do something for the community. This park is packed and it has been a long time since I've seen any parks packed. There are kids on scooters, kids on skateboards and wheelchairs, they are playing basketball. There are adults, younger kids and they are just having fun so if there is something I can do to help out then I definitely want to do it. I know they are still looking for funds for the playground," Hipp said. As of Friday, the town has raised $378,000 for the playgrounds which includes a full-sized pump track, a mini-pump track, handicapped-accessible playground equipment, handicap-accessible restrooms and upgraded basketball courts. Hipp says that he started the account while being off work due to the pandemic in 2020, posting an old video from work. "I took a video from work that was like three or four years old and it got 50,000 views and I was like 'oh this is kind of easy.' So I just started doing videos and it has kind of went off from there. A couple of videos went crazy," Hipp said. Hipp's most viewed video on the account currently has 1.6 million views and 363,000 likes. He has 863,600 likes across 339 videos on his account. He hopes that he can continue to raise funds for even more playground equipment to come in the future.