Written and Produced by Ashley Lyn Olson, wheelchairtraveling.com, November 7, 2022
Ashley Lyn Olson of wheelchairtraveling.com interviews lifelong community advocate, Bonnie Lewkowicz of Access Northern California, who was one of the first adaptive dancers and wheelchair travel agents. She pioneered adaptive sports and recreation programs. Perhaps most of all, Bonnie’s love for the great outdoors resulted in significant contributions to the creation of wheelchair accessible hiking trails, overlooks, landmarks, camping, and more at parks. She is a warrior on wheels and shares how to create access at parks along with tips on where to wheelchair travel.
Bonnie has worked for over 40 years advocating for and educating about physical and programmatic access to outdoor recreation and tourism for people with disabilities. She is the founder of the non-profit organization, Access Northern California, which merged in 2017 with the Bay Area Outreach & Recreation Program, where she authored several access guides to San Francisco, an accessible trail guidebook, and 2 websites that offer accessibility information. She has created and conducted countless access surveys for a variety of venues and has led disability awareness trainings to a wide range of businesses and government agencies including, hotels, parks, museums, and Amtrak. Early in her accessibility career, she was trained by the state of CA to assist businesses in identifying access barriers. She is also a founding member of the AXIS Dance Company. For more information about wheelchair accessible travel, including hiking and park, please visit wheelchairtraveling.com.