community Archives - Waypoint Adventure MA

wo young men wearing orange life jackets are high-fiving each other on a gravel path near a wooded area. Both are smiling and appear to be celebrating a successful kayak adventure. In the background, there are kayaks and other people concluding their activity by the water, surrounded by lush green trees. The atmosphere is joyful and relaxed.

Does your company match donations? Check this list of companies partnering with non-profits like ours.

September 6, 2024/in Donate, Fundraisers

By donating to Waypoint Adventure, you become a catalyst for change, helping us energize individuals with disabilities to overcome obstacles and invite life-altering opportunities. Contact your company’s social responsibility team to follow their donation guidelines and start maximizing your impact today. Take action now and be a part of this extraordinary adventure!

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3M
Adobe
Aetna (now part of CVS Health)
Akamai Technologies
Amazon
American Express
Amgen
Analog Devices
Analogic Corporation
Apple
AT&T
Bank of America
Biogen
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts
Boeing
Boston Consulting Group (BCG)
Boston Scientific
Bright Horizons
Bristol-Myers Squibb
Cabot Corporation
Caterpillar
Charles River Laboratories
Chevron
Cisco Systems
Coca-Cola
Colgate-Palmolive
Dell Technologies
Deloitte
Disney
DuPont
Eastern Bank
Eaton Vance
EMC Corporation (now part of Dell Technologies)
Estee Lauder
ExxonMobil
Fidelity Investments
Ford Motor Company
General Electric (GE)
Genzyme (a Sanofi company)
Gilead Sciences
Global Partners LP
Goldman Sachs
Google
Halliburton
Harvard University
Honeywell
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
HubSpot
IBM
Intel
Iron Mountain
Johnson & Johnson
JPMorgan Chase
Kimberly Clark Foundation
KPMG
Kraft Food
Lenovo
Liberty Mutual Insurance
LogMeIn (now part of GoTo)
Marriott International
Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH)
MassMutual
McGraw-Hill Companies
Medtronic
Merck
Merrill Lynch
MetLife
MFS Investment Management
Microsoft
Morgan Stanley
National Grid
National Instruments
Nellie Mae Education Foundation Inc.
New Balance
Nike
Northrop Grumman
Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, Inc
Nuance Communications
Nvidia
Oracle
Partners HealthCare
PepsiCo
Pfizer
PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC)
Procter & Gamble
Prudential Financial
Putnam Investments
Qualcomm Incorporated
Raytheon Technologies
Rockland Trust
Rockwell Automation
S&P Global
Salesforce
Santander Bank
Shawmut Design and Construction
Starbucks
State Street Corporation
Symantec Corporation
T-Mobile
Target
The Boston Foundation
The Home Depot
Thermo Fisher Scientific
Thomson Reuters
Time Warner
TJX Companies
Travelers Foundation
UnitedHealth Group
UPS
Verizon
Vertex Pharmaceuticals
Visa
Walmart
Wayfair
Wellington Management
Wells Fargo

Should your company be on this list too? Please email our Director of Development, Raeann Whalen!

Cycling for All

March 7, 2023/in Cycling

The Waypoint Adventure Club (WAC) Tandem Cycling Program

The mission of the Waypoint Adventure Club (WAC) is to make the outdoors a more diverse place – where the trails and paths are frequented by people that represent the true diversity of our world. Join us and you’ll get to adventure alongside people who love the fresh air, trees, pine needles, brooks and rivers, lakes, bridges, mud, and community – and are rejuvenated by it!

Often the lines between people with and without disabilities are indistinguishable as we enjoy biking as a community. Our group will work together to cycle the back roads and bike paths of Massachusetts. We take breaks and socialize on the trail during rest stops. We have a variety of bikes that offer different amounts of support. We will match up two riders (a Captain and a Stoker) The Captain will be the leader and the Stoker is the other half of the team, who works with the Captain to enjoy the adventure of tandem cycling. If you’d like to give small group tandem cycling a try, give us a call – we’d love to try to find a bike that might work for you. The experience will be about finding the right amount of support in a bike and teammate and working together as a group. The adventure will go from there.

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Carter School Partnership

March 2, 2020/in Uncategorized

At Waypoint Adventure, we talk about the importance of community all the time. There is no better example of this than on our programs with the Carter School. The Carter School is a Boston Public School high school for students with both severe, intensive disabilities and complex health needs. Carter students and their families participated in hiking and kayaking programs last spring. Three communities came together to make these programs possible: the Carter School, the Snowden International School, and Waypoint Adventure.

All Carter students and their families were given the chance to participate on a program in the Blue Hills on one of three days dedicated to hiking. Many students from the Carter School got to hike for the first time alongside peers from another BPS school, the Snowden International School. Snowden students learned how to push and pull some of Waypoint’s specialized off road wheelchairs, so Carter School students’ family members who usually are responsible for their child’s care at home had a chance to enjoy the hike without having to do any of the pushing. We had three great hiking days full of learning mapping skills, getting to know each other, and exploring nature (including smelling skunk cabbage). Since these hikes, we have loved finding out that Snowden students continue to volunteer at the Carter School for special events, further strengthening the relationship between the two schools.

The final program of the partnership is one of the biggest Waypoint has ever run! It was a cookout and kayaking day at Hale Reservation to celebrate the end of the school year. Families were welcome to join their child for the day. We had almost 70 people on that program! Carter students and their parents and siblings all got to try kayaking on Noanet Pond with experienced Waypoint volunteers. We all had a blast trying something new together!

Check out our pictures from these programs. We feel so lucky to be able to participate in this amazing partnership, and we cannot wait to watch these communities come together again to make these programs happen this spring!

IAC Backpacking 2019

October 8, 2019/in Backpacking, Hiking, Latest News, Open Enrollment, Past Programs, Volunteer

Our annual Inclusive Adventure Club (IAC) backpacking trip was one of the best IAC programs to date. Our vision for this club is that all people regardless of ability have the opportunity to share in the costs and rewards of the experience. We recognize that the thrill of backpacking can be even more rewarding when done alongside a diverse community! So…

On September 21st, 15 adults and their packs filled with food, sleeping bags, tents, and the like, journeyed up to the White Mountains for a beautiful weekend of fall backpacking. The specific destination: Franconia Brook Campsite. S’more-making; star-gazing; bowl-licking; weird wraps (peanut butter, cheese, pepperoni, hummus, and Doritos); and games around the fire were just some of the many highlights that made for a magical trip.

Several people by the end of the weekend said that this trip made their year. It is rare when a large, new group of people can come together and work so effortlessly. Genuine adventure allows that to happen!

If you are interested in backpacking or in other inclusive adventure club adventures, please check out our IAC 2019 Flyer and sign up!

The photos speak for themselves:

New Partnership with Riverview School!

October 8, 2019/in Kayaking, Latest News

New partnership alert! We’re working with Riverview School now! Riverview is a private boarding/day school founded in 1957 on Cape Cod for students with complex learning, language, and cognitive disabilities. We’re working with the GROW Adventure Club – students in post-high school transition who are interested in adventure, challenges, and the outdoors. We’re thrilled by this new partnership and a new place to run programs on the Cape!

Four big adventures are planned for this school year with the goals of challenging students with new and exciting adventures, and also opening up places and opportunities they can come back to in their local community to experience again! Our kick-off to the series was this evening kayaking program, but we’re also planning a winter hiking-weekend, an outdoor rock-climbing program, and a summer camping/kayaking weekend! Check out our sunset paddle on Wequaquet Lake in Barnstable!

We were impressed by the teamwork and care for each other this community demonstrated. One pair in particular made huge strides. When they were having a lot of trouble steering their boat, they became so frustrated that they just stopped paddling all-together. The rest of the group stopped too and offered tips and advice! This pair listened well and got to calm down, and then slowly but surely, they began to keep their boat straight and work as a team without getting frustrated with each other!

On the way back to shore, one of the students said, “This was harder than I thought it was going to be and my shoulders are pretty tired, but I feel great about what I did and that we were finally able to keep the boat straight!” We love the grit this team displayed and we can’t wait to see this team grow through more “first-time” challenges and exciting adventures! Stay tuned for our Winter Hiking Weekend!

Thank you again to Riverview for allowing us to work with your students and the Town of Barnstable for letting use Wequaquet Lake.

Leaders-In-Training Set Sail

July 8, 2019/in Special Events

The Waypoint Adventure Graduated LITs set sail on the World Ocean School‘s 137 foot schooner, Roseway last week and it felt like summer launched alongside them. A 90 degree day turned 75 and breezy on the water and impressive sails against a setting sun over the Boston skyline made for the perfect night. Then add in the mix a bunch of giddy young-adults excited to be reunited and you have one hilariously awesome boat ride. Our Leaders In Training program is up to 19 graduates total now and most could come aboard for this Boston Harbor cruise on July 3rd, the day before Independence Day!

The Sauer family (Johann’s parents) made this happen thanks to their connection with The World Ocean School and other LIT families stepped up to help fund it. Thank you to all! And thank you to the awesome crew aboard the Roseway who taught us navigation skills, knot tying, how to raise and lower the heavy sails, and gave us a tour of their ship and living areas. Thank you for making sure we had a great time!

It’s A Wrap! Somerville 2019

June 12, 2019/in Hiking, Kayaking, Past Programs, Rock Climbing, Ropes Course, Schools, Series

24 Programs! Our biggest partnership ever! What an awesome year it has been with the thriving Special Education Department of Somerville Public Schools. Thanks to a Cummings Foundation grant the Somerville SPED Department received and the tireless efforts of Wellness Coordinator and friend, Caitlin Kelly, Waypoint was BACK in Somerville for the 2018-2019 school year designing and facilitating quality adventure-education programs for 19 different classes across the district. Social-Emotional Learning was happening on these programs: students immersed in problem solving scenarios, supported by the process of learning and community, and given the right to take on challenging experiences and we saw it in action – the perfect recipe for character building come to life.

These programs were not just work for us. The buy-in from teachers and administrators made this series a joy to facilitate. We even had volunteers come out on one program and come back again and again and again because of how much fun they had just being a part of these days! Shoutout to Jim Bradley, Sylvana Weinstein, and some awesome repeat groups from Definitive Cares and The Shady Hill School. This community is vibrant and excelling because of your support!

You HAVE to peruse some of the pictures below. It felt like a family photo album putting these together and laughing about ridiculous things that happened on programs and awesome students, teachers, and volunteers we met along the way. Here are some snapshots from all of the programs we ran with Somerville during 2018-2019:

10/25/18 Ropes Course at Hale Reservation

11/14/18 Hike in the Middlesex Fells

12/19/18 Indoor Rock Climbing at Central Rock Watertown

1/9/19 Indoor Rock Climbing at Central Rock Watertown

1/11/19 Hike at Prospect Hill in Waltham

1/15/19 Indoor Rock Climbing at Central Rock Watertown

1/23/19 Hike at Ward Reservation in Andover

1/30/19 Indoor Kayaking at the Kennedy School in Somerville

2/5/19 Hike at Ward Reservation in Andover

2/13/19 Indoor Kayaking at the Kennedy School in Somerville

2/27/19 Indoor Kayaking at the Kennedy School in Somerville

3/19/19 Hike at Harold Parker State Forest in Andover

3/27/19 Indoor Kayaking at the Kennedy School in Somerville

3/28/19 Indoor Rock Climbing at Central Rock Watertown

4/2/19 Outdoor Rock Climbing at Hammond Pond in Newton

4/10/19 Hike at Breakheart Reservation in Wakefield

4/24/19 Hike at Lynn Woods in Lynn

5/1/19 Indoor Rock Climbing at Central Rock Watertown

5/15/19 Hike at Lynn Woods in Lynn

5/16/19 Hike at Prospect Hill in Waltham

5/23/19 Outdoor Rock Climbing at Hammond Pond in Newton

5/24/19 Hike at Breakheart Reservation in Wakefield

5/29/19 Indoor Kayaking at the Kennedy School in Somerville

6/5/19 Kayaking on the Charles River in Allston

We can’t thank our site partners from Central Rock Gym, Paddle Boston – Charles River Canoe and Kayak, Kennedy School Pool, and Massachusetts DCR enough for supporting this programming. THANK YOU!

And THANK YOU to all the students for participating, and the teachers and administrators that helped coordinate transportation, get forms filled out, opened the pool, and made sure adventure programming fit seamlessly into your curriculum. We believe it’s so important and it’s encouraging to see others agree. Looking forward to next year!

Best Buddies meets Adventure

June 6, 2019/in Hiking, Rock Climbing, Schools, Series, Uncategorized

It started in February and ended in May: The Best Buddies program at Cotting School planned three different “Waypoint adventures” for three different pairs of buddies. The series was centered on group and individual growth and championed inclusion. Diverse students learning together and challenging themselves alongside one another promotes the best sort of growth. It was such a pleasure designing this series! Thanks Best Buddies for this model to live by.

The first program was open to Middle School students at Cotting School in Lexington and Meadowbrook School in Weston. Click link below to check out the story we published in February on this program and one student, Thulasi, in particular that surprised her peers, teachers, and even her dad!

https://www.waypointadventure.org/best-buddies-a-series-built-on-trust-and-accomplishment/

The second program got out into the March cold and hiked at Cutler Park in Needham. “Capstone” students at Cotting School (Ages 18-22) partnered up with college students at Lasell College and hit the trails. The group had to work together to navigate the trails, stay warm, and participate fully. It’s easier to hike when you have company!

And last, but not least, we ended back at Central Rock Climbing Gym with Upper School Students from Cotting School and Buckingham Browne & Nichols in Cambridge. The goal was the same: use high challenge to facilitate connection between diverse students. It was an awesome end to this series we’ve loved and a great memory-maker for all involved.

Diversity Outdoors

April 2, 2019/in Uncategorized

We’re on a mission to make the outdoors a more diverse place – where the trails are frequented by people that represent the true diversity of our world. We’re grateful to get to adventure alongside people who love the fresh air, trees, pine needles, brooks and rivers, lakes, bridges, MUD, and community just as much as we do – and are rejuvenated by it!

Thanks to the MA Department of Conservation and Recreation, we’re able to put more programs like these on the calendar. Check out our hike in Harold Parker State Forest, in North Andover, MA. It was open to any adult with a disability and we had some awesome volunteers come out for the day too from the Institute of Performance and Fitness. Check it out!

Check out this video from our day: Spring Hike in Harold Parker State Forest

Winter Summit 2019

April 1, 2019/in Backpacking, Hiking, Latest News, Open Enrollment, Special Events

Waypoint Adventure conquered Mt. Willlard for our 8th annual Winter Summit Weekend!

Filled with anticipation and excitement, the group of 9 set out for the Highland Center in legendary Crawford Notch, NH. For some, it was another chance to summit Mt. Willard. For others, it was their first experience being up in the White Mountains in winter and hiking there with new friends.

The theme for this year was this: It Matters. Throughout the weekend, group members were given the challenge of reflecting on the decisions that they made and interactions that they had with each other to determine why they matter.

On the final night together, everyone shared their favorite moments from the trip. Some things that were said were: “This was the most challenging hike I have ever done, but I feel so proud of myself for doing it!”, “I needed this. This empowered me to get out into the world.”, and “This was excellent! (coming from a participant who uses limited speech)”.

After each person shared their favorite moment, they were given a cutout piece of the map from the trail they had just hiked. With a sharpie, each person wrote their favorite part on the back of this piece and had to figure out how their pieces came together to form the whole map. Without all the pieces, the map would have been incomplete. By the end, everyone realized that all the small things can make a huge difference in our lives. They Matter.

While the summit of Mt. Willard was truly a magical and special place, the weekend was made complete through the difficult journey up and down the mountain, eating way too much food, and hanging out with quality people in the lodge (not to mention the endless games of corn hole and ping-pong to boot!). Mt. Willard was just the icing on the cake.

But don’t take our word for it! Below are some pictures from the weekend.

Lodge Life:

Hike:

We are so grateful to have such a welcoming and loving community of people come out with us every year. 2019 was a very special year and we hope to continue the tradition in 2020. Thank you to AMC YOP for extra gear and the reservation at the Highland Center, Peter Fuller Vans (shout out to Jim Cubeta!) for the van and everyone else who made this all possible.

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