CRIS Adaptive
When you land in a place like Kelowna, our new home, you quickly realize that the outdoors will become your happy place—and fast! Adventures and experiences that didn’t seem accessible in a big city are now just steps from your front door. And new friends to share those adventures with are also just around the corner.
In the summer of 2024, we connected with a truly unique grassroots charity based in Kelowna called CRIS Adaptive. CRIS seeks to enable outdoor experiences and adventures for people who require additional support due to a variety of barriers, such as physical, cognitive, or sensory challenges, by combining the right people, experience, and adaptive equipment.
CRIS Adaptive consists of a group of outdoor enthusiasts with years of recreation and backcountry experience who aim to make outdoor dreams a reality for individuals facing barriers.
Since its inception, CRIS, a non-profit society, has made it their mission to provide relief to youth and adults who face challenges in accessing the outdoors. They develop and implement outdoor recreation programs that promote independence, assist with integration and inclusion, reduce isolation, and improve mental and physical well-being. Their heart and purpose are to promote inclusion within society and improve the overall quality of life for anyone with a disability.
CRIS also seeks to use recreation and the outdoors as a playground, always challenging themselves to create truly unique experiences for their clients. One doesn’t have to look much further than their founder, Troy, to see where the organization gets its adventurous zest and boundary-pushing potential. When we connected with CRIS, they were gracious enough to let our entire family tag along for a few of their incredible adventures.
Working with CRIS Adaptive has pushed our family out of our comfort zones on more than a few occasions and truly opened our eyes and hearts to the work this organization and its volunteers do to help others. We are thrilled to be a small part of their success and are very excited to keep working—and adventuring—with them going forward.
To learn more about CRIS Adaptive or to find out how you can get involved, visit their website at adaptiveadventures.ca