Thanksgiving Thoughts From Ross
Most of us don’t like to look foolish being overly optimistic. From believing our home team will win a championship to saying
About Kimberly Gleason
This author has not yet filled in any details.So far Kimberly Gleason has created 16 blog entries.
A hopeful holiday season
AccesSport is a community of hope and optimism. We’ve said this at basically every event and I’ve put something about hope in almost every blog or letter I’ve written. We truly know that this program works. People find more function and a place in this larger family - and have fun. Our history gives us confidence in the techniques and equipment we develop. This was never truer than in last March.
How It All Started
We’re coming into our 25th year in 2020. This is remarkable considering how this was built from nothing. I remember the first meeting of volunteers back in 1995. I had been adapting and teaching windsurfing to people with disabilities for about 10 years already. We just had really good media exposure with a Globe cover story about Josh and my windsurfing marathons and Dr. Tim Johnson’s great piece about our family on Good Morning America. All of the sudden, people were interested in helping us out and wanting to volunteer.
Fall 2016
We run three major events each year. The Mayor’s Cup Regatta, The Auction for Access Gala, and our Run/Roll for Access. The Regatta and the Gala are truly big events with hundreds of attendees. The Run for Access is smaller with a 20-30 participants but the impact is equal to one in which hundreds of people run or push.
Seeing the most in Nike’s newest athlete
We are so pleased the Nike has signed Justin Gallegos as a sponsored athlete. He’s a terrific cross country runner and the first athlete living with cerebral palsy to be signed by them. This is exactly what we, in this community and AccesSportAmerica feel is long overdue. We believe in compelling athletes everywhere living with varying challenges and disabilities.
ASA Launches Summer Sports Program at Watch City
We’re going back to our roots this summer. Back in 1995, we found a great site on the Charles River and invited individuals and groups to windsurf. We’re not at the same spot on the Charles but we’re back on the river at an incredible site in Waltham. We’re calling this our AccesSportAmerica Summer Sports Program at Watch City. The paddling is more interesting and varied than any site we’ve known. We can windsurf safely there and the cycling paths are picturesque with a truly perfect grade for adaptive applications like ours.
AccesSport Wake Up Call on WCVB
WCVB Channel 5 visited our recent football clinic at Harvard Stadium. Along with members of the Harvard Football team and the New England Patriots, we run this football clinic each May for students with disabilities from Boston Public Schools and Cotting School. This year we had the pleasure of giving Channel 5 viewers an enthusiastic, AccesSport wake up call! Thank you to the Patriots, Harvard Football, and our many volunteers and supporters who helped out at the clinic this year!
Spring/Summer 2017
The In School Program, The New England Patriots, and Harvard University. Each year we celebrate our athletes with whom we train throughout the school year. These students are primarily from Boston Public Schools and the Cotting School of Lexington, Massachusetts. The skills of these athletes are varied. Everyone is compelling, given the gifts, challenges, abilities, and disabilities within each. We train in the spaces that are available. Sometimes we are in gyms and other times cafeterias, auditoriums, and even hallways. We use game systems and drills that push these high school aged students to be and see themselves as true athletes. Our athletes are rarely in any spotlight or recognized formally. This is why, each year, we celebrate them with a football clinic at Harvard University with volunteers from the football team and players from the New England Patriots.
Winter/Spring 2016
We used to have an “Off Season” much like in professional sport. Back in the mid-1990’s our summers would be incredibly busy with 10-12 instructors/trainers. Once September came up, we’d let our bodies, minds, and our adaptations/equipment recover. We’d spend the winter planning for the next summer and dream of ways to include more people with even higher challenges in our sports. Now the summers are even busier with over 20 trainers in the height of our summer season and hundreds of athletes coming to us each day. The fall and winter are about as busy as our summers, and the training has become incredibly intense.
Fall 2015
Growing up or even after, were you ever part of picking teams for some athletic contest? Back in the “day” we used to pick teams and some poor kid was last every time. Now it’s a bit more sophisticated like shooting foul shots to see who gets to play but we still know that someone is left out. And then when playing, some people dominate the game more than others. Even if you weren’t the last to be picked or get in a game, you probably noticed or felt for those who were marginalized, didn’t you? I’m sure these experiences soured many of us in regards to team or even individualized sports. Many of us saw how power in sports corrupted some and excluded others.