For years it was a little-used and neglected space at the outskirts of McKinley High School, overgrown with weeds and overrun by the homeless.

Now, thanks to teacher Shakti Folger and her Po‘okela Program students, the courtyard has been transformed into a sanctuary for McKinley’s special-needs students, including those who use wheelchairs, walkers and require other special accommodation.

Po‘okela Mini Park, all spruced up and charming, will be dedicated in a ceremony today at 12:20 p.m.

“It’s a place where these kids can come and be happy,” said Folger, who was working there Tuesday afternoon with her husband, Mike O’Connell, putting some of the last features in place.

McKinley is a school that accepts a high number of students with special needs. Up to now the most severely challenged students would spend their lunch and free time cooped up inside their classrooms.

But now they have a pleasant place to gather and have fun. The minipark includes a beanbag toss game area, a miniature putting green, an adjustable basketball hoop and small court, plus benches, painted murals and other things.

Folger, a former special-needs teacher at the school, now oversees the Po‘okela Program, which gives McKinley students short on credits or with other challenges a second chance to graduate on time.

Each year, Folger assigns her students “pay-it-forward” activities, and this year’s group of 22 seniors was charged with helping out the homeless, seniors and the handicapped.

For the homeless, the group donated clothes and food and offered companionship to individuals on the street. For seniors the students staged a special hula show at McKinley’s 150th Gala last month.

The 30-by-90-foot minipark, situated between portable buildings on the mauka side of the Honolulu campus, is the final pay-it-forward effort, a project accomplished with a few small donations and mostly just hard work: cleaning, weeding, hauling, building, installing, creating and more.

The project isn’t quite done, however. Folger is still looking for a water fountain (a waterline already exists) and a wooden wheelchair ramp.

She tried going through a formal bid process to get the ramp. But that wasn’t happening after it came in with a $56,o00 price tag.

The teacher, a dynamo who is moving back to her birth island — Hawaii island — after the school year, said she hopes the minipark, when completed, will be a model other schools will copy.

“It’s just nice to have a safe environment where we don’t have to worry about them,” she said.