Digital Accessibility Firm Level Access Provides Generous Grant, Enabling the AbleGamers Foundation to Offer Enhanced Disability Educational Resources and Direct Support
Thanks to a specific three-year grant from digital accessibility firm SSB BART Group (Level Access), the charity has opened the AbleGamers Center for Inclusive Play in Charles Town, West Virginia — roughly an hour’s drive from our nation’s capital. The new facility better equips the AbleGamers Foundation to support the nation’s estimated thirty-three million gamers with disabilities!
“Level Access is honored to support AbleGamers and their important, inspiring mission,” said Level Access co-founder and CEO, Timothy Springer. “Video games can help transcend disabilities and serve as fantastic tools to encourage, entertain, empower and connect often socially isolated individuals. With this larger facility, AbleGamers will be able to more effectively spread awareness for and foster support of enhanced accessibility in gaming, positively touching an even greater number of lives.”
“Thanks to the gracious support of Level Access, AbleGamers is now better equipped to deliver support to our nation’s community of thirty-three million gamers with disabilities,” said Steve Spohn, AbleGamers COO. “Whereas in the past we have been limited to holding finite consultations off-site or online, the new AbleGamers Center for Inclusive Play vastly improves our ability to host in-person appointments, develop content for gamers with disabilities and to offer an impactful resource for the local Charles Town community.”
The AbleGamers Center for Inclusive Play significantly impacts the charity’s ability to provide:
- Additional free one-on-one consultations with gamers challenged by disabilities
- Live demonstrations, customization and instruction on accessible gaming peripherals
- Grant and sponsorship support for free accessible gaming hardware for gamers with disabilities
- A 3D printing studio for developing prototype assistive gaming technology
- A dedicated streaming studio to expand AbleGamers’ educational efforts on includification and to bolster its fundraising efforts
- A significantly larger operations facility, dramatically improving logistics of AbleGamers’ Expansion Packs — comprehensive care packages of assistive gaming technologies donated to disabled gamers at long-term care facilities, complete with setup, usage, and maintenance support
Open to the public every Thursday, the AbleGamers Center for Inclusive Play is roughly twice the size of AbleGamers’ previous facility in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. Potential AbleGamers beneficiaries may schedule a disability support consultation and explore grant options for securing free-of-charge accessibility controls and peripherals, which are custom-designed to help mitigate the impact of individual physical and mental impairments. The AbleGamers Center for Inclusive Play is also outfitted with a dedicated 3D printer room for in-house development and customization of assistive gaming technologies, as well as a studio for charitable livestream events and production of video content.
The AbleGamers Center for Inclusive Play was recently featured on a CBS News special about disabled gamer Christie Moyer, whose cerebral palsy had stopped her from enjoying her favorites games: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, DOOM and Halo. An AbleGamers consultation helped restore her ability to game, using a combination of a customized touch keyboard originally designed for graphics design artists and a 3D rudder foot panel controller.
About The AbleGamers Foundation
The AbleGamers Foundation is a 501(c)(3) charity that wields the power of video games to break down the barriers of economic and social isolation for people with disabilities. Through received support and donations, AbleGamers provides disabled gamers with assistive technologies (including their Expansion Pack program) that allow those with limited real-world mobility to experience what it is like to walk, run, climb, drive and even fly – in a virtual world.
Via their Includification initiative, AbleGamers additionally advises developers and publishers on how to best incorporate accessibility options so that their video game titles may reach and appeal to the widest and most diverse audience possible. To read AbleGamers articles, or to find out how your support or donations can help them positively impact an even greater number of individuals with disabilities, please visit www.ablegamers.com.
Related: AbleGamers and GDC Send 2 Game Developers with Disabilities to 4-Day Train Jam and GDC 2017
I'm a published author and proud US Army veteran who happens to be a gamer, so I decided to combine the two and love every minute of it! Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments and I'll be sure to get back to you.
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