Photo Credit: Fairfax County Park Authority
The coordinators of the Fairfax County Park Authority’s (FCPA) Americans With Disabilities Act were seeking partners in 2013 for new, adapted programming ideas. The agency already had more than 1,000 registered customers in the Adapted Aquatics programs, and more than 100 participants were in Adapted Gymnastics. Dozens more attended adapted campfires and camps that not only brought the outdoors to people with disabilities—the programs brought people into the outdoors.
Riverbend Park in Great Falls, Va., was approached because, outside of hiking, the park’s most popular recreational activities take place on the water—fishing and boating. At the time, boating and fishing were not priorities of the agency’s adaptive programming, and this was an opportunity for program expansion, new revenue, and stewardship education among users who were traditionally excluded.
An Accessible River
Riverbend rests on a sweeping turn of the Potomac River, with a relatively calm stretch of water along its shorelines, just upriver from the more famous Great Falls National Park with its whitewater kayaking opportunities. For decades, Riverbend has taken advantage of its location to provide recreational water programming for children and adults. Available through the park are canoe and kayak tours, day camps, boating, fishing, and water-based Scout merit-badge programs. In 2014, Riverbend introduced new programs that made the river even more accessible to people.