Submersible Wheelchairs at the Gold Star Pool ($12,000)

Committee: Transportation, Streets, and Sidewalks

Cost: $12,000

Location: Gold Star Pool.

Short Description: Purchase submersible wheelchairs for people with mobility disabilities to use for swimming at the Gold Star Pool and beach field trips. These wheelchairs will increase access to physical activity, recreation, and community participation. 

Long Description: 

Submersible wheelchairs are designed to be waterproof and buoyant, allowing people with mobility impairments to safely access, use, and enjoy swimming pools and other bodies of water. Gold Star Pool was designed with an entry ramp, making it the perfect location to use submersible wheelchairs. This initiative would create better and more equitable access to this pool, whose existing accessibility features already attract swimmers with disabilities. Pool staff would be trained on the use and storage of the chairs and users would be made aware of their availability. Participants in the Cambridge Program and Camp Rainbow would also have additional comfort and access in this pool and could even bring the chairs on field trips to other pools, beaches, and bodies of water. As a result of this initiative, people with mobility disabilities would have increased access to physical activity, community participation, and recreation, aiding in their overall wellbeing.  

Portable submersible wheelchairs are readily available for purchase and are already in use at multiple municipal and Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) sites throughout the state. The chairs would be stored at the Gold Star facility. Submersible chairs are easy to use and store, and instruction on how to do so would be incorporated into regular staff training at the pool. Five of them would be purchased with the funds from this proposal.

An example of a submersible wheelchair intended for pool use.	Two kinds of wheelchairs for pool and beach usage.