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My Trip to Acessible Israel
By Fred Maahs , Jr .
I grew up attending Catholic schools and spent many hours during my youth studying the Bible , the Holy Land , and the origins of my faith during religion class or in church . For me , Jerusalem and the birthplace of Christ were places that were held with absolute reverence . I never imagined that I would actually visit these holy places , especially after an accident that left me paralyzed from the chest down and using a wheelchair when I was scheduled to begin my first year at college .
I ’ ve always been a firm believer that things happen for a reason . The purpose of my trip to Israel is yet another affirmation for me that God has a plan for all of us .
M
360-Access is a service which maps and shares accessible features of public spaces. It is not crowd-
sourced nor contains vague statements such as a mere “we’re accessible.” This service asks simple but
detailed questions based on the ADA guidelines. See public restroom section shown here:
adonna Long and Joanne Peterson are the
founders of 360-Access. An auto accident rendered
Joanne less than fully mobile. After learning to
walk again, she used canes and crutches to get
around and have recently added a scooter and oxygen to her
devices. When Madonna was 18 years old, her High School bus
was returning from a skiing trip from Utah back to Wyoming. On
its way down the mountain in Utah, the brakes failed. Her best
friend died in that accident and she was left paralyzed from the
waist down.
Madonna Long
Joanne Peterson
When Joanne plans trips or attempt to take people out for
a meal, she first makes calls to verify information about the
facilities, which is time consuming and not always helpful or
accurate. On one of her recent trips to Pittsburgh, she arranged a
lunch for Madonna, and three others. The place boasted of valet
parking but on arrival, there was no valet or convenient parking
at lunch time. They were scheduled to be next door to attend
a conference but the side doors of the building were locked
and they had to navigate their way to the front of the building
to gain entrance, which was yet another barrier as covering
distances was an issue.
Madonna’s many years of navigating accessibility throughout
Wyoming, Nevada and the places she lived proved difficult. She
found there was a 30 to 50 percent chance that places were
accessible or a restroom or restaurant was free of barriers. It
really was apparent to them that a system to map accessibility
was definitely needed.
Joanne and Madonna first met at a networking event. During a
conversation, Madonna casually mentioned that Visit Pittsburgh
once asked her whether it will be possible to show which of their
member companies were accessible. She said her response
to them was “no, because it would take technology and a
database” to get that done. Joanne however explained it would
be relatively easy for her to do because her day job involved
developing systems that report on legislative or regulatory
compliance!
The 360-Access project was started soon after, with two other
contributors Amy Malmgren and Andrew Neilson. Sadly, they
both passed away in 2018 when they the project was about 90%
complete. Losing these two key contributors caused them to
regroup and pivot, ultimately going live with 360-Access on July
26th in celebration of the ADA turning 30.
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