RAA receives REI Cooperative Action Fund support!

We are proud to announce that Rochester Accessible Adventures (RAA) will receive two-year funding from REI Cooperative Action Fund to support our work to bring more people with disabilities to the outdoors!

This much-welcomed financial support comes at a very important time when RAA is cultivating and expanding our work within a number of critical areas in outdoor spaces. As we all learned during the Covid pandemic, when things shut down, we still need to move! And getting to the outdoors was a crucial part of many people’s lives during that time. For people with disabilities, though, heading outdoors wasn’t so easy. “Knowing before going” isn’t possible when meaningful descriptive information isn’t provided; when you won’t know if there will be a bathroom on site that meets your needs; when you don’t know what’s “out there” beyond the trailhead.

RAA is working on changing all of this!

“The benefits of participation in outdoor recreation and leisure are well-documented, and we must ensure people living with a disability have equitable access to areas and programs designed for human engagement. We are gathering regional collaborators and partners that will enable us to push our preliminary impact to a broad, dynamic level.”

Rochester Accessible Adventures has been working in the outdoor and tourism industries since its formation in 2015, providing consultative solutions to small businesses and groups like Erie Canal Boat Company, Genesee Valley Audubon Society and Genesee Land Trust, municipalities like Victor Parks and Recreation and Perinton Recreation & Parks, as well as regional and statewide entities like the Village of Brockport, NYS DEC, On the Canals, and Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor. By bolstering the ability of these entities to provide their services in a manner that directly and clearly EXPECTS AND INVITES people with disabilities to participate in the outdoors, RAA’s work has resulted in dramatic increase in local, regional, and statewide destination travel and outdoor recreation by people with disabilities.

We are happy to share more stories with you about how our work is creating greater inclusion of people with disabilities across our area. Please reach out and we can talk more — and thank you for sharing this wonderful news about our support from the REI Cooperative Action Fund so that the community learns about how we are EXPECTING people with disabilities in the outdoors!  We want to reach not only people living with a disability but also more community partners who want to work with us to make our region a leader in equitable access to parks, trails, managed lands, and outdoor recreation.

Want to know more? Contact us today!