Opportunities For
Paralysis and Wheelchair Users
Nonprofits around Santa Barbara county are working to increase outdoor accessibility for wheelchair users.
Nature Tracks
NatureTrack, a local Santa Barbara nonprofit that offers outdoor field trips, is working to increase outdoor accessibility to people in wheelchairs.
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For many people, the hardest part of a beach day is finding parking and bringing enough sunscreen to protect our skin from blistering. For people who use wheelchairs, their hardest difficulty is just getting onto the beach. It can be just about impossible to move a wheelchair on top of sand.
Standard wheelchairs are not created to move across rough terrain, sand, or grass. So, the idea of going to the beach may not seem feasible to those in wheelchairs.
NatureTrack has helped to get beach-accessible wheelchairs onto the beloved Santa Barbara County beaches. This has thrown a door open for people who use wheelchairs in the community.
Executive Director Sue Eisaguirre founded NatureTrack in 2011. The organization was originally founded to bring K-12th graders on outdoor adventures, but when long-time volunteer Steve Scholtz, who was paralyzed in the 90's, was consistently forced away from participating in the trips due to his paralysis, Eisaguirre sought to take action.
Eisaguirre and grant writer Katherine Boone discovered Freedom Traks, a motorized off-road attachment for manual wheelchairs. The device has unique tracks that allow wheelchair-users to traverse ground conditions such as sand, snow, trails, and grass.
While purchasing Freedom Traks began as a kind gesture to Scholtz, Eisaguirre soon saw the present opportunity to expand outdoor accessibility to wheelchair users from San Luis Obispo to Ventura County.
“There was just so much more to tell about the lack of access for people in wheelchairs to the natural world,” Eisaguirre said. “Nature is so important for all of us that it’s just something that we need to bring awareness to. Now that technology has caught up it’s not that difficult to make sure that nature is accessible in the way that we can experience it.”
Photo courtesy of Sue Eisaguirre
NatureTracks now holds 10 Freedom Traks units, and holds monthly “tracks trips” for local residents and organizations. Wheelchair users can also rent the devices out for free on a day-to-day basis, giving outdoor access to those who can’t walk at any time.
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Susan Myers has been living in Santa Barbara for 43 years now without easy access to the ocean. But, now these weelchairs has given those with disabilities a new way to get in and out of the sand.
"I can unload and even get into the water with my new wheelchair," said Myers. "
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Not only is the nonprofit's disability program physically beneficial, but also a large leap for mental health. Both Eisaguirre and Boone emphasized the effect that nature has on the brain, and how it has helped many of their participants
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"Mental health is a big part of it when they’re out there and able to do something that they never thought they could do again," Boone said. "I know wheelchair users who never thought they would be able to go out on the beach again, and certainly not independently."
Eisaguirre recognizes that there are still limitations to wheelchair access in the outdoors.
“Somebody in a wheelchair can’t just roll out to the edge of a beach and sit by the water," Eisaguirre said. They can’t go on some of the trails that we can walk on. Yet with Freedom Traks or other devices that may come about like that they have the opportunity to go where we go with still some limitations, and some of that we can’t change.”
Golden Cage Films and NatureTrack Foundation recently produced “The Accessible Outdoors,” a short film about the importance of and opportunities for disabled people to become involved in outdoor activities. The documentary garnered a Silver Award at the Hollywood Independent Filmmaker Awards & Festival.
Volunteers also hope that encouraging outdoor accessibility will increase environmental stewardship.
“My theme is that it’s human nature to protect something if you love it, and you understand it and enjoy it,” Eisaguirre said. “If we’re not taking kids out and giving them an enjoyable experience, it’s not going to do what we ultimately want to do and that’s create environmental stewards.”
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No longer is a beach day just a figment of a far off dream, it can now be a reality.
