In October 2024, ANCA Member Whitney Lash-Marshall drove to Lime Hollow Nature Center in Cortland, New York, to test a new all-terrain wheelchair — under the brand name Trackchair® — that Lime Hollow recently acquired. This automatic wheelchair uses tank-like tracks to navigate trails with uneven terrain, allowing people with mobility challenges to still access nature away from paved pathways.
Lash-Marshall, who is Executive Director of Baltimore Woods Nature Center in Marcellus, NY, wasn’t sure what to expect — but was impressed by the wheelchair’s capabilities. Two weeks later, Lash-Marshall reached out to ANCA Member Ilya Shmulenson, Executive Director of Lime Hollow, to ask if Baltimore Woods could borrow the wheelchair.
“I didn't think he'd say yes,” Lash-Marshall says. “But he sent us the paperwork to sign it out and personally drove it out so a [Baltimore Woods] member could try it out, and our organization could see if our trails could accommodate the chair.”
A transformative experience
That member was Dave Graham, a Baltimore Woods donor who had helped the organization acquire new land. Graham could not walk the trails due to Parkinson’s disease, and did not expect to explore the new property firsthand.
With the borrowed all-terrain wheelchair, however, Graham was able to roam the trails freely for a day — and even brought binoculars to indulge in his longtime interest of birding. He was thrilled.
Graham’s use of the chair changed how the Baltimore Woods staff saw access to their trails. Though such all-terrain wheelchairs come with a hefty price tag for a small organization, the team immediately decided that they needed to fundraise for their own wheelchair.
“That was the day we were really committed to doing it,” Lash-Marshall says, “and Dave made the inaugural gift to kickstart our fundraising campaign.”
Opening public access
It took time to fundraise, but Baltimore Woods just acquired its own all-terrain wheelchair. Lime Hollow staff have continued to provide guidance to Baltimore Woods on managing the logistics of offering the chair to the public.
Graham passed away in January this year. Though he didn’t live to see Baltimore Woods’ wheelchair delivered, Lash-Marshall said it was important to Graham that others would be able to experience the trails like he did on that day in October 2024.
“He knew the chair was on its way,” she says, “and he had made that moment possible for others.”
A network of collaboration
This story speaks to the power of the ANCA network, showing two ANCA member organizations collaborating to offer access to nature and environmental education.
“The ANCA network is certainly the best support network I could imagine coming into a nature center executive director role,” Lash-Marshall says. “It’s transformational to have a network that you can call up at any time when you're stuck or feeling alone in the day-to-day.”
She notes that it was vital to see Lime Hollow’s success with the all-terrain wheelchair, which provided Baltimore Woods with the inspiration to acquire their own.
“I don't think we would have gotten one if we hadn't seen somebody else do it first,” she says.
Shmulenson says that the nature center profession is stronger when organizations share insights and experiences.
“We don't want people to have to drive long distances to experience nature as something unique, we want them to experience it in their own communities,” he says. “That's why we collaborate and share, because nature is for everyone and it should be accessible in a person's own community. The Trackchair broadens the population for whom that is possible.”
Expanding accessibility
Since that initial exchange in October 2024, Lime Hollow Nature Center has acquired another all-terrain wheelchair so that two chairs — a left-handed model and a right-handed model — can be in use at the same time. Shmulenson reports that this has transformed access to the trails.
“The Trackchairs have made outdoor accessibility possible at Lime Hollow Nature Center across generations and across ability levels,” he says. “It has been incredible to experience people's astonished realizations that ‘Grandma can come hike with us!’ or to see a child with special needs or a teacher with mobility challenges come on a field trip because they are now able to access the trails and the programming, whereas before they would be left at school.”
Lash-Marshall indicates that other ANCA member organizations in their region are now pursuing similar chairs or other accessibility improvements.
“Accessibility to nature is something a lot of us are thinking about across our nature centers,” she says. “But it's also a conversation that needs to go beyond the physical accessibility.”
This can include other challenges that community members may face, such as transportation to get to the nature center, or ability to pay for a program. Ultimately, Lash-Marshall sees accessibility as an area where nature centers have momentum.
“It does feel like there's a movement both regionally and nationally to really integrate this into our values and our visions more. So I'm excited to see where that takes us.”
