HICKORY, N.C. – It’s a refreshing sound just in time for warm weather. The splash pad at Zahra Baker Park opened the season Tuesday.

• Zahra Baker was murdered in 2010. 
• Splash pad is for children with special needs
• Park address: 805 6th St SE, Hickory, NC 28602

Zahra Baker, 10, was murdered in 2010. In her young age, she had one leg amputated and had to wear hearing aids.

“We recognized back in 2012 with the tragic incident surrounding Zahra Baker that we need a place where children, all children not just (some) children, but where all children were included,” mayor Hank Guess said.

Thanks to one special community member, her legacy continues to grow with this splash pad.

Tuesday, a plaque was revealed naming it the Charles Dixon Memorial Splash Pad. Dixon led the splash pad project in Hickory making it his mission. He died two years ago before the project was completed.

“He was a bull dog. When he had something in his idea that he wanted to happen, he would focus directly and make it happen,” Mary Anne Dixon Hubbard, daughter of Charles Dixon, said.

It’s a place children with disabilities can now cool off with no restrictions.