By Nicola Whitley, New Hampshire Fish and Game Department

Beyond Boundaries Whitewater Trip

Shep Roeper, Director and Co-Founder of Beyond Boundaries

I was fortunate enough to be able to attend this year’s ACI conference in Arlington, Virginia, and even luckier to hear some wonderful speakers. One of the most interesting and inspiring talks was entitled “Inclusion in the Outdoors” by Shep Roeper, Director and Co-Founder of Beyond Boundaries. His organization is based in Virginia and helps connect individuals of all abilities access a wide range of outdoor activities with the surrounding community.

Their main focus at present is veterans, underserved youth, individuals with disabilities, and people in substance recovery programs. Some of their adventure opportunities include whitewater rafting, kayaking, rock climbing, fishing, hiking, biking, and camping. He and his partner are always looking to expand to offer other types of programming and try to accommodate requests whenever they can. In 2023 they provided 250 trips and experiences for participants, which is a huge leap from their first year when they hosted two rafting trips.

Part of their mission is to remove barriers that prevent people from being able to experience the outdoors. “Being outdoors is something that everyone should be able to do, but we realize that is not the case,” said Roeper. “There are barriers to these amazing experiences that can be physical or financial and we work hard to take those barriers away.”

Beyond Boundaries works with volunteers, partners, and organizations to provide the programming. Partner groups handle the registration and know their participants’ abilities. Beyond Boundaries has also been working with the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources for the past seven years, including on wildlife grant programming and some of DWR’s staff have worked as volunteers. They offer volunteers Disability Inclusion Training with covers such topics as communication and social skills, empowering terminology, defining disability, labeling, inclusion, empowering body language, and using mobility devices.

Goals of the program include empowering participants and helping to build their confidence. “Creating independence for someone with a disability is amazing,” said Roeper. “We create an inclusive space to be able to see someone for their abilities rather than their disabilities. After completing a class, participants self-identify as a birder, an angler, or a paddler.”

Being in nature has been shown to provide many benefits, including reducing stress, improving sleep, providing a sense of connecting with others, and improving self-esteem. Roeper noted that outdoor activities allow their participants to work on teamwork, communication, problem solving, and independence.

Currently they only operate in Virginia, but hope to expand their program. To learn more, visit Beyondboundariesrva.org