Rochester Accessible Adventures

Adaptive Sports Teams: RAA supports the development and sustainability of Adaptive & Inclusive Sports (Teams) and in 2024 continued our WNY Adaptive & Inclusive Collaborative with Greater Buffalo Adaptive Sports to address the lack of access to sports across the WNY region. Our adult Sled Hockey team began its season in the Fall and provided clinics for recruiting new players from the community. We continued youth outreach for a new sled hockey program. Our youth inclusive wheelchair basketball, the Rochester Rockets, met weekly in a community R Center for practices, engaging local youth from that community in pre-practice games. RAA also worked with USTA Eastern to provide wheelchair tennis clinics. We also set things in motion to begin wheelchair lacrosse.

Education and Outreach: RAA provides Education & Outreach through our Regional Resource Network to connect people with disabilities, health care professionals who provide services to people with disabilities, and our Community Health Inclusion initiatives. Our work is now distributed to 10,560+ people with disabilities, families and providers in our region. We formalized our #WeWillInclude platform for individuals and groups to access a free online Inclusion Ambassador Training, exceeding our 500 milestone with 576 people who have been given access to the training. RAA partnered with Nazareth University Occupational Therapy Students to complete a pilot research project regarding people living with Parkinson's and their participation in pickleball. (Continued on Schedule O.)RAA participated in 17 outreach and education events in 2024 in order to ensure individuals and family members learn about and are directly connected to resources, programs, and opportunities that provide inclusive and accessible experience.We reached many individuals through events, supported programs, and inclusive sports teams. We were in the news 26 times; held our first-ever Pickle Dink & Lob pickleball event; attended a record number - 17 - community outreach events; facilitated our first whitewater rafting event; and expanded our Inclusion Partner outreach from Buffalo to Schuylerville, NY! We jumped from 20 inclusion partners to 26 in 2024. We reached 10,560 people through 125 events with 304.5 hours of engagement. Our volunteers provided 1053.25 hours of support in 2024!