HELENA — One of the many obstacles that people with mobility challenges face is the limited battery life of their wheelchairs, but this is being addressed with a charging station in Tenmile Creek Park. The new feature promotes equal opportunity for all to enjoy the outdoors.
“Our mission is to connect people and lands and people with the outdoors and if more people can do that then we are winning, we all are winning,” said Mary Hollow, the executive director for Prickly Pear Land Trust.
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The park has been open for around a decade and Prickly Pear Land Trust along with other community partners continues to work on making the park more accessible and inclusive.
The 180-acre park co-developed with the Montana National Guard was built with access for all in mind.
Hollow says, “We always wanted to try and make this park as accessible as possible, but especially for the people in this immediate area.”
That immediate area includes the VA Hospital and Spring Meadow Resources, connecting people of all mobility levels to nature, health, and community.
Although the charging station focuses on those in wheelchairs, the park's flat trails and accessible parking benefit those with a variety of needs.
“It is not only folks in wheelchairs or with limitations to their mobility," noted Hollow, "But moms with strollers and kids with little bikes learning to ride and elderly people might have new hips or knees that need a flat nice place to walk.”
The charging station was paid for with help from AARP, the Land Trust Alliance, and private donors.
This is just another step in a greater goal of continuing to make the outdoors available to everyone.
The station is now open to the public and joins a small but growing network of wheelchair charging locations in Helena, including the City-County Building and the Law and Justice Center.
