Category Archives: Disability Resources
Kidchella – August 2022
On Saturday August 20th, 2022, Nick and the Awesome in Action team were lucky enough to participate in the first annual Kidchella event hosted by the City of Loveland.
This event featured live music and performances, vendors, games, activities and Awesome in Action’s booth.
Nick wanted to spread his message of inclusivity by creating adaptive carnival games that were accessible to people of all ability levels. Nick often finds that when he goes to carnivals and festivals, the games are not accessible for someone in a wheelchair or with limited mobility.
Nick and the team started off by planning what accessible games we would offer. After a lot of thought, the team came up with a fishing pond game, a “choose your door” game, and a sensory bin with prizes. Nick loved the idea of the fishing pond game and was so excited for this project!
The next step was to do some fundraising to help pay for the costs of materials for Kidchella. Thanks to very generous donors, Nick was able to raise funds to cover all of the expenses for the project including all of the materials for the games as well as prizes and candy.
Then the team had to purchase materials for the event.
Well, it turns out that being experts in ability awareness and advocacy didn’t translate into being handy with tools and building materials! Nick’s team, including his mom and dad, all put in a tremendous amount of effort to create the games. Nick and his job coach Liz spent an eventful day at Lowe’s purchasing plywood, hinges, and other supplies to create the games, and Nick thought it was very funny that Liz had no idea what she was doing in a hardware store!
But, true to Awesome in Action’s mission, we persevered and didn’t let our perceived limitations stop us from being successful!
Nick and the team created the games from scratch and were so proud of their teamwork and ingenuity.
The day of the event, Nick and the team set up their booth with the adaptive games, resources about services for those with different abilities in Larimer county, and Awesome in Action marketing materials. The wind couldn’t stop the team from having a great time.
The fishing pond game was a huge success, and there was a long line of kids waiting to play the entire day! The younger kids loved the sensory bin, and Nick had so much fun watching them dig around in the rice and find prizes.
Nick and the team offered adaptive “fishing poles” with large grips for those with limited mobility, using dowel rods and pool noodles. Talk about smart!
Overall the event was a huge success and proved that Nick and the Awesome in Action team truly face any new challenges with an open mind, sense of community and team work.
This event wouldn’t have been possible without the incredible donations from the community, and Nick can’t say “thank you” enough!
Nick wants to specifically thank his mom, dad, Carl, Audrey, Kelleen, Allee, and Anne for coming together and helping him create the games and man his booth. Nick would also like to thank Kerry Helke and her team with the City of Loveland for giving Awesome in Action the opportunity to participate!
We can’t wait for next year’s Kidchella festival!
Open Streets takes on Ability Awareness
Last Sunday, lead awesome dude, Nick and his team invaded the Open Streets of Fort Collins for Open Streets 2018. Open Streets is an event in Fort Collins where an entire three-mile stretch of neighborhood streets are closed off for local booths and citizens of Fort Collins to bike through. We were invited to be a part of it.
Nick was excited to have Awesome Advocate Samantha Strong as a part of the event this year because she’s funny, smart and she brought some speech devices so passers by could experience what it’s like to use a device to communicate. Samantha works for PRC and helps individuals use tools to help foster inclusive relationships with others. For more information on Samantha and PRC, you are invited to check out their website at Prentke Romich Company.
At our Awesome in Action booth, we had several fun activities that people could try. One of which was the Wheelchair Obstacle Race, where racers would hop in a manual wheelchair and race through an obstacle course. Many kids loved experiencing what it’s like to drive a wheelchair around.
Another one of our fun activities was trying out a speech device that our wonderful friend Samantha brought along. Nick thinks speech devices are awesome because he can tell stories, he can speak his mind, share favorite movie quotes and clips with his friends.
We also got to roam around Open Streets with awesome Olivia catching a ride on the back of Nick’s wheelchair. Nick’s favorite part was using his speech device, named Percy, to talk to all of the people he passed by.
Overall, we loved being a apart of Open Streets because it was so fun. We loved sharing the mission of Awesome in Action with the people of Fort Collins, and letting them experience how people of different abilities use different tools to get through life. We are looking forward to next year!
Awesome in Action, Co 