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The SPLORE story began with our founder Martha Ham. While studying therapeutic recreation, Martha traveled to California to work with an organization called Environmental Traveling
Companions (ETC) in 1976. ETC helped
individuals with disabilities participate in
recreational activities such as river rafting. After
returning to Utah, Martha hoped to find a similar
organization. Although she discovered that there was no such organization, Martha recognized the need for a Utah-based outdoor recreation service for people with disabilities and she decided to start her own organization to fill that void. |
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Martha's first challenge was to find an outfitter willing to work with people with disabilities. After several rejections she came in contact |
with Ken Sleight, owner of Ken Sleight Expeditions, who agreed to host a trip that took a group of developmentally disabled individuals river rafting. It was a great success and it encouraged Martha to expand the program.
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By 1979, the popularity of Martha's programs helped develop
the organiza- tion into an incorporated agency. Along
with local attorney Bryan Barnard and other volunteers,
Martha came up with a name, and Special Popula- tions
Learning Outdoor Recreation and Education (SPLORE) was
born. More recently, the goal of SPLORE is to involve
"people of all
abilities" in all programming and in 2005, the phrase
"Special Populations" was no longer considered
to be an appropriate description. Now the organization
name is no longer an acronym and is simply known as "SPLORE".
As a coincidence, the word "splore" in Scottish
means "a frolic; revel; or carousal", which
is a great description for the exciting activities SPLORE
provides to our participants! |
| Throughout the next several years, SPLORE grew in popularity, gained recognition from other social service agencies and built tremendous support within the local community. |
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| Through Martha's vision and hard work, and the unwavering support of volunteers and donors, SPLORE is able to carry out its mission of providing life enhancing, accessible outdoor adventures to children and adults with disabilities and specific needs. |
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SPLORE is a Utah based non-profit organization
that specializes in providing life-changing outdoor recreation
experiences to children and adults with disabilities and special
needs. SPLORE ran its first accessible rafting program during
the summer of 1977 and for more than 30 years, has served over
30,000 individuals with disabilities as well as their family
members, friends & care providers.
SPLORE | 880 East 3375 South | SLC, UT 84106 | 801.484.4128
| fax 801.484.4177 | info@splore.org |
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