Meet Abby and Discover Easterseals Massschusetts

      Big Thanks to Patrick Remy from Easterseals MA for this joyful story of success that highlights the personal transformation and benefits possible in adaptive recreation programs. Easterseals MA is offering their adaptive pool program this summer at DCR's Bennett Field Pool in Worcester. If you live in the Worcester area, don't miss out! Contact Patrick at premy@eastersealsma.org to sign up!

Abby's confidence grew so well she assists the swim program!

       Abby and her mother Michelle have shared an incredible bond since before she was born. While in utero Abby was diagnosed with Tuberous-sclerosis which has symptoms that include seizures, intellectual disability, developmental delay, and lung and kidney disease. Michelle has been Abby’s biggest advocate since the moment she learned of her diagnosis and Abby is quite attached to her mother.

Accessible Birding in Winter

Thank you Meghadeepa, for sharing your personal experience and recommended strategies for birding with disabilities in winter!  This article is reprinted with permission from Bird Observer, February 2023, Volume 53, Number 1, www.birdobserver.org 

Birding from the accessible gazebo at Longmeadow Flats.
Photograph by Steph Almasi.

Many folks are content limiting their birding to the abundance of spring. Seems like a smart decision. I live in small-town and rural Massachusetts, where the climate can create dangerous outdoor conditions for the six months that we split between Thanksgiving blizzards, actual winter, and faux spring. Tall snowbanks block crosswalks and views. Parking lots that are plowed on a somewhat predictable schedule are unpredictably left unsalted. Black ice surreptitiously creeps up on you when you least expect it. And even on the most popular “accessible” birding trails and bike paths, you must fend for yourself once frozen precipitation hits the ground. When you get out the door, the subzero temperatures and wind chill will surely turn your limbs into ice. And these are just the barriers that nondisabled birders experience in northern winters.