An Important Anniversary and 2025 SportsAbility!

What a crazy winter! We had snow in Tallahassee! That was exciting, but I must admit, I am so glad Spring is in the air. This time of renewal and growth parallels SportsAbility Alliance’s growth as we celebrate its 35th Anniversary! We hope you will join us as we commemorate this milestone throughout the year! We will be sharing events and information on our social media platforms (Facebook and Instagram) and on our website.

2025 SportsAbility: I hope you plan to participate at our 35th (there is that number again!) Annual SportsAbility Expo scheduled for April 25-26 in Tallahassee, Florida. This event is FREE and open to everyone, but registration is required. You can attend one or both days —whatever your schedule allows.

The 2-day event starts on Friday, April 25 from 10:00 am – 1:00 pm at the Tallahassee State College where attendees can enjoy a variety of indoor accessible recreation activities as well as a resource expo. On Saturday from 10:00 am – 3:00 pm we hope you will join us for an outdoor adventure day at Maclay Gardens. Participants will be able to experience accessible water sports, rock wall climbing, horseback riding, lawn games, EcoRovers and much more! This year we are adding a Sponsor Village at the Maclay event. Please contact our office if you are interested in being a sponsor. Click here for Sponsor Information.

We hope you will join us and our partners for a wonderful time! Please visit SportsAbility.org for more information and to register.

Want to Volunteer? Volunteers are vital to the success of this SportsAbility event.
If you are interested in volunteering, we would love to have you join us! It’s rewarding and it’s Fun! Recruit your friends, co-workers, and others and sign-up together.

For information about volunteering at SportsAbility click on this link: https://www.fdoa.org/volunteer#SA23. Once you complete the registration, there will be a confirmation email that includes a link to a short orientation video for you to watch! As we get closer to the event, we will send out a SignUp Genius link to all our volunteers for you to select the date, time and activity you would like to volunteer for! 

SportsAbility Samplers: We are working with our activity providers to offer
SportsAbility Samplers around Florida. Be on the lookout for more information.

Virtual Workout: We continue to partner with the Spirt Club to offer Fitness Friday workouts at 11:00 am Eastern Time. Check it out on the SportsAbility Alliance Facebook page. Don’t worry if you miss one—the workout is available all week on-demand.

Family Café: This is more a late Spring/early Summer event, but registration for the Family Café is now open.
Date:  June 13-15, 2025
Location: Hyatt Regency Orlando
Registration: There is no registration fee for people with disabilities and their family members, and limited financial assistance is available to cover the cost of your hotel stay.

SportsAbility, along with some of our activity partners, will be providing accessible activities in the Expo Hall. And, of course we will hold our Duck Race!

For more information about Family Café event, visit the Family Café website at: https://familycafe.net/annual-family-cafe/

Happy Spring!
Stay Well and Stay Active!

Fran Gilbert
Executive Director, SportsAbility Alliance

Spring is here and we have Sprung!

It has been another great year for SportsAbility Alliance. We are well into our wonderful programs and planning for the future. Our roots and commitment to outdoor recreation has been one of our major pillars of focus since our beginning in 1990. Public support for conservation and nature-based recreation and leisure activities remains high, even as we come out of the Covid 19 crises that brought lots of attention and more participation.

Beach and trail adventures are in high demand, and we continue with our efforts to remove barriers for people with disabilities to enjoy the benefits of those experiences along with people without disabilities. We have expanded our reach and impact on people who live and visit the northwest part of the state. This is home to many of the world’s most beautiful and most visited beaches and other outdoor recreation areas and opportunities.

We are removing barriers for participation for people with mobility limitations with the addition of four more EcoRovers that are being made available for people to use. Two of those by donation through the Florida State Park Foundation. These all-terrain mobility devices are great solutions for beach access on our sugar sand gulf coastline of the panhandle area. One EcoRover was placed at Grayton Beach State Park and the other at the Topsail State Park and Nature Preserve in Destin. The other two recent additions came by way of a donation through the Fish & Wildlife Foundation of Florida for hunting, shooting, and other outdoor recreation activities in the Northwest Florida region. We are appreciative and anxious to continue with efforts to inform people of the opportunities and to get beach and trail, and hunting access programs started in other locations as well.

We are moving forward with plans for our annual Tallahassee SportsAbility Expo event on April 25 and 26. Registration is now open, and it helps us tremendously to have participants register as early as possible. We are also looking to find additional Sponsorships to help us fund this free event. Many non-profit organizations are going through a period of uncertainty and doubt about existing and future funding sources and we are concerned as well.

We firmly committed to continuing our 34 years of SportsAbility here in Tallahassee and with our twenty something years with the Sampler at the Family Cafe in Orlando. We are also working on plans for continuing with the Jacksonville event in July and to include a Beach Access Day again on Jax Beach with that Sampler. We are excited to be exploring the possibility of adding another SportsAbility Sampler event in the Central Florida area that would include an outdoor recreation activity day. More on that to come.

Watch our website for a new resource referral system that will expand and clean up and add more easily usable and current content with a partnership with the My Needs Network that will replace our old iFind database. The needs and benefits of recreation and active lifestyles are great and well documented. It is much more than just fun and games, and is really about better health, more happiness and wellbeing.

ACTIVE LEISURE for LIFE! 

David Jones
Founder, SportsAbility Alliance

SportsAbility Alliance is thrilled to share the success of the recent FWC Mobility Impaired Hunt Kickoff Event at Blackwater Wildlife Management Area on January 31st.

This event marked a significant milestone in our commitment to ensuring that everyone, regardless of ability, can experience the wonders of Florida's outdoors.

We're proud to be at the forefront of this initiative, partnering with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), the Fish & Wildlife Foundation of Florida (FWFF), and NextEra Energy Foundation to make wild Florida more accessible than ever.

This blog post was written by SportsAbility Alliance Volunteer, Jessi Wynn.

Jessica Long stands as one of the most decorated Paralympic swimmers in history, a title earned through sheer determination and relentless hard work. Her journey to success has been anything but easy, culminating in an astonishing 30-time Paralympic medalist, world champion, and record holder.

Born on February 29, 1992, in Bratsk, Russia, Jessica faced significant challenges early on. She was born with fibular hemimelia, a condition that necessitated the amputation of both her lower legs when she was just 18 months old. Adopted by an American family at 13 months, Jessica grew up in Baltimore, where she began her path toward becoming a Paralympic legend.