Accessibility Concerns Team

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The Accessibility Concerns Team has been hard at work organizing and growing even amidst the COVID19 pandemic. We continue our endeavors to assist in making our Annual Conference a place where everyone is included and valued. We have shown some marked improvements over the last few years and will keep learning and growing as we work toward full inclusion!

Thank you to all our volunteers who help make it possible and to everyone who is looking out for others both during AC and the rest of the year.

We also continue to update our page on the Annual Conference’s website as needed, continue to monitor for grant applications, and discuss further resources, including adding an outline of service for Accessibility Sundays (https://www.unyumc.org/resources/accessibility).

We continue our work toward greater social media presence. This remains a work in progress. The grant application remains available. Please remember that you must have celebrated Accessibility Sunday and must have taken an offering for the grant in order to be eligible to apply , since it is a self-funding grant. Additionally, churches must also complete accessibility audits with their Conference reports to be eligible for grants from this fund. (Visit the above link for more information.)

One important change to the grant is that we hope to provide four $500 grants in the next year. Of course, this takes funding, which happens through Accessibility Sunday offerings so, again we continue encouraging local churches to join in these efforts.

We continue to collect accessibility survey data each church completed over the past few years. We are reviewing information received from 2021 church charge conferences. We continue our analysis as we move through the pandemic.

Our mission statement remains as follows:

We believe that all people are created in the image of God and have sacred worth. We also believe that it is vital to the body of Christ to celebrate the spiritual gifts of people with all abilities so that we can best witness the beauty and diversity that God has created in our communities.

We are here to support, train and assist local churches of the Upper New York Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church to best serve those with accessibility concerns.

Our goal is to make the community of Christ accessible to all people.

We continue to seek information on what tools/resources our local churches need in order to make their communities more welcoming for those with disabilities and share those resources as we continue our work for Annual Conference.

We look forward to hearing more from the churches, districts, and conference to help us discover what accessibility challenges need to be met throughout the Conference (at Annual Conference, District Days, or church services) and offer suggestions on how to meet those challenges as we are able.

Please join us in helping transform the world by becoming the most accessible church possible.