- From WXXI News, this is "Connections."

I'm Sarah Murphy Abbamonte filling in for Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour was made in 2021 when Visit Rochester, the official tourism promotion agency from Monroe County, created a subcommittee of its visitor industry council dedicated to inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility within the hospitality sector.

Through the IDEA Committee, member volunteers provide the local hospitality community with a number of training opportunities tied to various topics and led by subject matter experts.

These opportunities have included an introduction to ASL and deaf culture, LGBTQIA+ allyship, accessibility, multi-generational understandings of the workplace, just to name a few.

The committee has also worked closely with MCC to develop virtual hospitality training on some of these topics with financial support from the Statler Foundation.

Over the next hour, we'll discuss some of these challenges faced by travelers with disabilities and how the local hospitality sector is responding to those needs.

Joining me today to dive into this further are Shane Tavolino, a local hospitality professional and co-chair of the IDEA Committee.

Anita O'Brien, executive director of Rochester Accessible Adventures, Leslie Ward, owner of Lovin' Cup, and Kerrie Giesen, who has experienced traveling with multiple sclerosis or MS. As always, we invite your feedback during the program by calling 1 (844) 295-TALK.

That's 1 (844) 295-8255.

You can also email us at connections@wxxi.org or leave a comment on our YouTube feed.

Anita, Shane, Kerrie, and Leslie, welcome.

Since we're now live streaming to YouTube every day, I'd like to ask each of our guests to introduce themselves to our audience and provide a short visual description.

So, just as an example, I am a cis woman in her early 40s with an olive complexion and short dark hair.

Today I'm wearing a white sweater, black jeans, and glasses.

Anita, I'll start with you and we'll work our way around the studio.

- Great.

It's great to be here today.

Thank you.

My name is Anita O'Brien.

I'm the executive director of Rochester Accessible Adventures.

I have light red hair wearing black glasses and a reddish color shirt.

- [Sarah] Thank you, Kerrie.

- Thanks for having me.

My name is Kerrie Giesen and I am a woman wearing, I've got purple in my hair right now, purple and gray.

I'm wearing a dark sweater and glasses.

- Thanks so much for having me.

My name is Shane Tavolino, co-chair of the IDEA Committee and Local Hospitality Professional.

I am a cisgendered man.

I'm currently sitting with a pink dress shirt on.

- I love it.

(laughs) - Thanks.

- [Sarah] We're all very snazzily dressed.

- All right, my name is Leslie Zinck Ward from Lovin' Cup.

I am dressed like it's winter with one of my hats, a nice yellow hat supporting a local music organization, a flannel, and I have reddish hair for this month.

We'll switch that up eventually, but yeah.

- [Sarah] Love that, love that, and Kerrie, I love the purple too.

- [Kerrie] Yeah, thanks.

- Yeah.

So Kerrie, I'd like to maybe start with you if you maybe wanna share a little bit of your lived experience.

I understand you've traveled domestically, internationally, you know, if you wanna share some of that with us.

- Sure.

So traveling domestically is, there's a wide array of what people consider accessible.

And so whenever I travel domestically, I like to call the hotel first to make sure I know exactly what I'm getting, like a roll-in shower or exactly what their definition of accessibility is.

It's a little bit harder to do that internationally, but it still works.

I guess more information from the hotels or restaurants is the biggest thing, you know, to have if, you know, if they can provide as much information as possible that will allow me to prepare for my visit.

But it's really kind of all over the place.

Even going into restaurants, it's, you know, maybe I can get into the restaurant, but can I sit at a table and eat my dinner?

You know, if I rent a hotel room, can I take a shower in the hotel room?

'Cause they say that it's accessible, but is it accessible for me?

So accessibility is a term that's very loose and so I really have to call and find out all the specifics before I do travel.

And of course, you know, traveling with a disability, you know, I also have to consider, okay, well, flying on an airplane is difficult.

Flying with a manual chair is okay, but flying with a power chair is another level of complexity because airlines aren't really very good with power chairs.

They break them quite often.

- Yeah, we saw a lot in the news about that in 2024 for sure.

- Yeah.

It's pretty bad.

And then do the airline employees, are they respectful and trained well in transferring you from their wheelchair into the seat?

And that kind of runs the gamut as well.

I've had some employees who really know what they're doing and some who have no idea, you know, at all what they're doing.

And then of course, when you get to the actual airport, then how do you transfer from the airport to the hotel?

So can you get from, you know, with your manual wheelchair, that's easy enough, you can just break it down and put it in a car.

But like my power chair, I can't just randomly go into any car.

I've gotta have an accessible van there to be able to take me to my location.

So each disability is different in what they're faced with.

And so it's just every step along the way has to be planned and kind of micromanaged in order to make sure that your visit goes as smoothly as possible.

- And ultimately, it always, it can go off the rails at some point.

I guess you just have to have a sense of humor and sense of adventure and hopefully everything turns out okay, but.

- Yeah, absolutely.

Well that sense of adventure, I think is so key, as you say, even though you're dealing with basically a disability tax whenever you try to embrace that sense of adventure.

So in your experience, you know, are there any places that stand, I mean, we don't necessarily wanna name drop anybody, but are there some circumstances or locations that have stood out to you either positively or negatively?

- Yeah, so there's one restaurant that is continually so accessible as far as table length, table height is concerned, and that's Village Bakery.

And they have your basic four leg table that's at the exact right height that I can slide right under.

There's no center pedestal for my wheelchair to get hung up on so I'm eating 10 feet back from everybody else.

So it's so nice and I feel so included when I can just go into a restaurant and I can zip right under the table and there's nothing that gets in my way.

I don't feel like an afterthought.

I feel like I was actually included in the planning of this whole thing.

But yeah, I think that's the biggest one.

I mean, it just depends.

I do know that certain, there have been a lot of restaurants that will, once they find out that you can't sit at their table, they will make, you know, amendments to what it is that you need.

And I'm trying to think... Yeah.

- Great.

And I know, thank you for sharing, Kerrie.

And Shane, I know you and I have talked in the past about exactly what Kerrie was mentioning, like feeling included and having that intentionality.

I wonder if you could share a little bit about the IDEA Committee and what you're sharing within the local hospitality sector to make sure that all of our, whether it's visitors or people that are from Rochester that are just, you know, taking in some of our venues here, that they feel welcome and included.

- Yeah.

Thank you, Sarah, and thank you, Kerrie.

Feeling welcome and included is so important.

And the IDEA Committee was founded to focus on the Rochester community as a destination through the lens of inclusivity, diversity, equity, and accessibility.

The work that we do is to help train frontline hospitality employees to be more respectful and to have the language that they need to interact with people from everywhere of all different abilities.

And it's been such an important task.

Sometimes we don't know where to start and where to stop, but we keep trying to focus on how DEAI intersects with hospitality.

A lot of places will have ADA compliance in place such as a lowered bar or a pullout desk when you're checking in at a front desk or maybe a spa appointment.

But it may not be welcoming, it may not be accommodating.

So we're trying to provide frontline hospitality workers, business owners with the tools that they need to be more accessible and be more welcoming to everyone and not just check a box.

- Right, right, absolutely.

And going beyond, I mean, we're talking specifically about mobility here, but going beyond and thinking about folks who maybe communicate differently or identify as neurodivergent and all of the things, making sure that staff are trained and that they have resources for them.

- [Shane] Yeah.

- Yeah.

Leslie, you are the owner of Lovin' Cup.

- [Leslie] I'm one of them.

- You're one of the, okay.

And we love Lovin' Cup.

It's a great restaurant, but also a music venue.

So that must bring in some unique challenges when you're thinking about accessibility and inclusion.

- Yes.

I think that we're always trying to find ways of just making our, I love hearing from you guys by the way.

And I think we always constantly like just need to be thinking of this and getting better and better and not feeling like an afterthought and whatnot.

But yes, we get a very diverse crowd of people.

We also need to be conscientious of our atmosphere, specifically being next to RIT, whether it comes with music and just making sure that people who are deaf feel the vibrations, you know, making sure the lighting's good.

That's one that we deal with a lot.

It's interesting to hear some of the mobility situations 'cause the plaza we're in, which I love to pieces, but it is a little bit hard to navigate around.

So we're very clear when we see that someone has some needs, we'll open a side door, just make sure that they have a easy way in that they don't feel like we aren't thinking about everyone.

That's really important to us.

But yes, we deal with, you know, when I say we deal with, we welcome people from very different capacities and we try to be very sensitive.

I don't think anyone likes to feel like an afterthought in any way, shape, or form in life.

So to be a little bit ahead of the game with that and continually make sure that you're doing the things that make it better for people, that experience is really important.

Specifically with the ASL community, which again, we are one of the biggest communities in the country, you know, we find that training is important.

We feel that having a diverse community of crew members is important to, you know, just like give them opportunities to learn how to communicate in the best way that we can rather.

So we're always trying to be great, but we can always be better.

- Sure, yeah.

Inclusion and accessibility always a journey without a set destination and things can move quickly and be very fluid in that space.

To Leslie and Shane, both of you, are you also recruiting from these diverse populations when you're looking at staffing?

- Yeah.

I'll take it first here.

(Leslie laughs) It's extremely important to me as a leader within the hospitality industry to hire people from diverse backgrounds.

- [Sarah] Shane, I'm gonna ask you just to move a little bit closer.

There we go.

- Of course, yeah.

To hire people from diverse backgrounds and in all abilities.

We want to be as accommodating and welcoming as possible.

And it starts with the people who work in our businesses.

And, you know, as someone who has a neurodiversity myself, I try and talk about it out loud and let other people know that it is a safe space.

It's a safe space to talk about your needs and what you do.

I work for corporate now and we have some really detailed things that we follow, but other people with private businesses, they might not necessarily have specific resources.

Another thing that we do with the IDEA committee is put a resource guide together to help local business owners, making sure they're following the appropriate practices and guidelines to not only service their clientele, customers and guests, but also their employees.

- I totally agree.

I think you'd be a great resource.

I'm so glad I got your card today.

But yeah, I think one of our core values is diversity, and that is from a crew member standpoint and having people that can understand, contribute in positive ways to the experience of the humans that come in there.

I think that's really important.

I think it's the first of our four values, but it is really nice to hear that there's additional resources, because again, I think we all continue to grow.

Nothing is static here in this world, that's for sure.

So I think the more that we can just be empathetic and understanding and have a plan, you know what I mean?

Even when I did, when we first opened 17 years ago, I feel very old.

But anyways, we worked with a company called Interpretek who, they're fantastic.

And they came in and did a training and they schooled us on, you know, like, what deaf people would prefer to be called.

And just having a plan, not acting like nervous or like this person is like, you know, like just having a plan.

So they gave us a lot of great tools, and yes, I definitely have a lot of, like, crew members that speak ASL fluently that are just conscientious, kind people, but always trying to create new training programs to acknowledge the things that are put in front of us.

- And Anita, I'm gonna turn to you from the recreation space.

I know we've worked together in the past, most notably with the Eclipse Task Force last year, which was a whole other thing when you talk about prepping for events and things like that.

But tell us a little bit about your approach to accessibility and recreation.

- Yeah, so I think our approach really aligns with what we're hearing today, which is there's a desire for people in the community to be able to experience as a community member alongside everybody else.

And in order to do that, in order to have the confidence to be able to go out and mix and mingle and go to these great spaces, we need competence and confidence inside every single business so that they're meeting each other, so that we have that welcoming atmosphere.

We have the amenities in place already without having to ask for them.

And that kind of piece is what RAA does.

We really look for where people aren't feeling as competent and confident about providing that kind of service.

And then we met, as we help change and provide that kind of training and ongoing support, then we also go out into the community and bring people into those spaces because it's the pairing of both.

It's understanding that inclusion is strategic.

If you're gonna have it 10 years from now, you need to have a strategy in place, a plan in place for becoming better and better.

So that's a nutshell version of what we do.

But we work closely with businesses in recreation, tourism, and sports specifically.

Interesting note, they say that our health and wellness, 80% of our health and wellness takes place outside of the medical office.

So to me that's recreation, sports, and tourism spaces that people gravitate to for their social, emotional, and physical health.

And if we can be ready in those spaces, then all kinds of dynamics will shift.

We'll have healthier people, we'll have more engaging opportunities within the community.

So I think as a space, a place that we want to bring people to, whether it's our own community members or guests from outside, we can put these things in place.

RAA feels like these are very tangible things that can be done.

And once they're done, they can be maintenance and you can continue down that road, building your clientele and building the people that come into your space.

- [Sarah] And you've been working quite a bit with the upcoming Erie Canal Bicentennial.

- Yes, so that piece of water goes right through our area here.

And that corridor of opportunity is amazing.

And I see all of these, I don't see them as challenges.

I do see all of this conversation as an opportunity.

It's an opportunity for strategy to be put in place for confidence to be built, for competence to actually happen.

And so I think with that twist on it, then we don't have to feel more anxious about it and we can start looking at how we can be better at it.

So the Canalway is great.

We are working with the bicentennial celebration, it's Rochester Accessible Adventures' 10-year anniversary, which is really fun because we started, one of our first businesses that we worked with is on the canal in Fairport.

And so to be able 10 years later to say, well, how many other towns are we now working with, where this conversation is happening?

So because of the accessibility education program with the Canal Corporation, we have just more than tripled, exponentially grown our villages and cities across the canalway from Hudson Crossing Park in Schuylerville all the way to the end of the canal in the Buffalo area.

So very exciting opportunities for this kind of conversation, to have it at a state level, to have state level entities literally incentivizing change and supporting change.

So that's a lot of what we're working on specifically this year.

- Great, and, you know, specifically looking at the canal communities, so there's an ecosystem there, so there's other businesses there, there's restaurants, there's hotels, and so really having a holistic approach.

- Yes.

You know, we started with a very small, literally small ink print on the map in Fairport.

So it was a canal, Erie Canal Boat Company, a rental company for kayaks and cycles.

And very quickly we saw the connectivity to all of the other issues and spaces for growth, which would be, all right, we're bringing people in to have accessible and inclusive experience.

Now where are we all gonna go to the restroom?

And where can I confidently say, "You should go for lunch over there.

And if you wanna have an overnighter and stay and come to the other spaces in Rochester, here's where you should get your lodgings."

And that confidence, my own confidence in being able to give people that list of great venues 10 years ago was a lot less than it is now because we've been working on that connectivity between the full experience.

It's never just the one activity that we're bringing them in for, whether it's a local community member or guests from external.

So when we look at a village or a city, we are, Sarah, looking at that ecosystem of transportation, of access to interpreter services, of lodging, of restaurants, of really cool music that one could go see Friday night after they go kayaking.

Like that's tourism.

That's experiencing a community.

And so we're looking into all of that as our point of focus.

- And Kerrie, I wanna get your feedback on that, but first I just wanna remind our audiences, we invite your feedback during the program by calling 1 (844) 295-TALK.

That's 1 (844) 295-8255.

You can also email us at connections@wxxi.org or leave a comment on our YouTube feed.

So Kerrie, when you're thinking about where you're gonna travel, this is all stuff you're taking into consideration, as you said previously, like it's great if venues and hotels and everything are upfront about what they're offering.

Can you bring us a little bit more into the planning process?

- The planning process is kind of in depth.

Well, for me, it is anyway.

I really don't like to fly by the seat of my pants.

So I guess it starts off with looking at everything on the internet, but you know, you can't really necessarily trust everything that you see in the internet.

So it's making phone calls to find out, you know, what does your hotel room look like.

When you say your hotel room is accessible, what does that mean?

Some hotels are great about, you know, advertising everything right on the internet.

And most often, I will call to confirm that yes, this is the room that I'm gonna be getting.

With restaurants, as far as going out for dinner, oftentimes now with the advent of you can make reservations right online, and I just leave a comment that I'm in a wheelchair, that has been very helpful, but a lot of times still, I'm in a wheelchair doesn't really, you know, mean anything.

So, you know, one time I'm in a wheelchair, I need a, you know, an appropriate table, and I get there and she took me to a high top, well.

You know, how am I supposed to eat there and they found something quickly, but it's just, it's that thinking of, okay, you're in a wheelchair, let's maybe put you in, you know, the very first table or close to the front so that you don't have to try to navigate all the way to the back of the restaurant when there's, you know, very narrow places to get through.

- Then you have to take into consideration where the restrooms are.

- Well, yeah, well that's it too.

Right, and the restrooms are, you know, I've had really good restrooms and other restrooms, like for example, there was one restaurant downtown, actually two, where I went to go into the bathroom and nice bathroom, nice big bathroom.

But on the way to the handicap stall, there was furniture.

There were like tables and chairs.

Well, how am I supposed to get around the table and chair?

So thankfully my friend was with me, she could move it.

I got into the bathroom and I went to lock it.

Well, the lock was like all the way up.

So it's just, it's thinking about exactly where you're placing these things.

Yes, you have a nice pretty handicapped stall and it's big, but I can't even get there.

And then, you know, and then getting out of the bathroom to wash my hands, I can't reach the soap, I can't grab a towel.

So it's these little things that are, you know, that you need to think, people need to think about when they're doing this kind of stuff.

So I really wish that as they're constructing these things or putting furniture into place or whatever it is, call someone who has a disability and have them come in and do a dry run through it to see if it's, you know, actually if it's gonna work.

Because oftentimes, it isn't gonna work.

Or oftentimes it's just an easy, you know, an easy fix, like hitting the handicapped lever, pressing that to open a door.

I have encountered so many times when, and actually this was at a doctor's office, there was a big potted plant underneath the... And so I couldn't hit it.

But it was simply moving.

And same thing at a doctor's office, there was a table underneath the buttons to go into.

Anyway, so it's just simple things, you know, being in that mindset and thinking, okay, I'm in a wheelchair, can I do this?

- Yeah, and your point is so well taken that, you know, we all come around a table with our own experiences and, you know, we can research and we can rely on things like the ADA, which is a floor, not a ceiling, let's be clear.

And also is very unclear in a lot of places or has ranges that are not gonna work for everybody.

And I wanna talk more about that when we come back.

But we are gonna take our only break of the hour.

When we come back, we'll have more from our guests.

- [Evan] I'm Evan Dawson.

Monday on the next "Connections," longtime director of the Rochester Public Library and Monroe County Library System, Patty Uttaro is retiring next month.

Throughout her 44 years in the library world, she has seen a lot of change.

We're gonna talk with Uttaro, incoming director Emily Clasper, and colleagues about the future of libraries on Monday.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Support for your public radio station comes from our members and from Bob Johnson Auto Group, proud supporter of "Connections with Evan Dawson," believing in informed public makes for a stronger community.

bobjohnsonautogroup.com.

- Is this break?

- This is "Connections."

I'm Sarah Murphy Abbamonte sitting in for Evan Dawson.

Today we're talking about traveling with a disability and the efforts of our local hospitality sector to provide an accessible and inclusive welcome for visitors and residents alike.

Shane, I wanna turn to you now.

I know there's been conversation within the IDEA Committee about exactly what Kerrie was saying is, you know, taking in input and feedback that you get from whether it's guests or diners or recreators and kind of using that to inform how you move forward, whether it's the built environment, staff training.

I wonder if you can speak a little bit more to that.

- Yeah, absolutely.

And you know, Anita, you said something and both Leslie and I are note takers over here, and we wrote down, inclusivity is strategic.

Inclusion is strategic.

And that's exactly it.

When we get feedback from, you know, people of multiple abilities, we try and take it as seriously as we can and implement it right then and there in order to make it more accessible to them.

You know, we had someone stay at our hotel that was staying in an ADA compliant room and they sat me down and said, "This may be compliant, but it is not accommodating and not welcoming."

And I took their feedback, something as simple as lowering a mirror so they could put makeup on, moving things around the room so they were within reach and that is something we could affect immediately.

And then there's other feedback when we go into maybe building a new hotel or doing a renovation, we have saved for a later time that requires more capital and more strategic planning to make those changes more, again, accessible and welcoming.

And the IDEA Committee is great because we share openly the things that we experience.

So right now I'm currently in a hotel with a restaurant, but we're sharing with other restaurant owners or things that we all experience so we can all help each other and make Rochester a more inclusive place.

- Great.

Leslie, did you wanna add to that?

- I just agree and I think it's funny that we're writing the same things down.

I'd liked that you added to that, that it's not only strategic and that we can keep learning and getting better, but I liked that you said it's also an opportunity to create experiences for people and just show that you gave some thought to that.

And again, you just have to like move with everything.

You just have to adapt, adjust.

And another thing that I kind of thought about was the little things, the things that we think are like the little things in life are oftentimes big things for people.

And I think just making those small changes, that's really important.

And again, it can be very cost effective, but more importantly it's the right thing to do, which I think is always like the way that I guide our crew.

And yeah, it's just so wonderful to hear all of your opinions and just how we can all, you know, just be better.

- Yeah, absolutely, inclusion, there's the business case for inclusion, but there's also just, it's the right thing.

We wanna be welcoming and we wanna be open and hospitable to everybody, so.

- Exactly, and empathy goes a long way as well.

- I think it helps for people to wrap their heads around what we're talking about when we talk about words like disability and accessibility and inclusion.

It's us, it's our mother-in-law, it's our child, it's our aunt, it's our best friend.

I mean, it's just us that want to go out and be a part of all of these venues and experiences, and if we can personalize it, because not everybody has met somebody with a disability that they can think of right off the bat, or they've met one person with a disability and they're not able to see others.

And so I really think that if we can make it personal in a way that says, well it might work for her aunt, but my aunt still couldn't use it, can I help you figure out so she could come?

Because I think when we do that, there's a lot more favorability about, there's less resistance to the change.

Oh my gosh, of course I want Tammy to come, you know?

And all of a sudden, it becomes that kind of real.

And we learn then I think through this process of, did we think of everything?

Like are we thinking about if we're thinking about a concert venue, are we thinking about actually a person with a disability being on stage, not just in the audience.

So if we didn't think of that, then we're leaving out really great musicians who can't come and be at a venue because we didn't think about that stage issue.

And so every time we talk about these things, light bulbs go on.

And that's why I know it's tangible enough to talk about and to do.

Because if you can turn on a light bulb, then there's a solution behind it.

So we really do see it as an opportunity for making these spaces available for everybody and everybody in the family.

No one's being left at home because the website wasn't clear enough to under, because, you know- - Or the family not going at all.

So maybe Tammy has four people she wants to bring with her.

They're not leaving Tammy at home.

They're just not going to your restaurant or your hotel or whatever.

- Because that doesn't feel good, to not know and then to potentially get there and have it not work, that's the worst.

So you just stay home and you just decide, or you go someplace else that you know is more accessible and more welcoming.

And it really, I think, is about getting ourselves to a place with our businesses that we've removed the ask.

I think that's a great way to think of it is, well, what else could somebody ask for?

Oh, well let's just get that in place so they don't have to arrive in our parking lot and need help getting in the front door.

Let's just make the front door more accessible to more people.

So it's tangible, it's doable, it has solutions.

And I think, you know, very pleased with the momentum over the past 10 years in Rochester of embracing this concept and not just saying, oh, that sounds great, but, you know, seeing some evidence of changes and willingness to make the changes.

- Yeah, absolutely.

In our first hour today, we were talking about some technological advancements for hearing parents of deaf children, and that always comes up in a conversation about accommodation, accessibility, the tech opportunities that are presented.

And certainly, Kerrie, you mentioned that at the beginning talking about what the airlines are doing to potentially make it so the wheelchair users can just board with their chairs and sit without having to get into your standard airline seat.

So has that changed the way you approach travel planning?

- To some extent it has definitely, but you know, when I read recently that airlines were going to be, you know, making planes where I could just roll right onto it and lock myself in, that's years away, you know, and it's only a few planes, big planes that, you know, don't take out of Rochester.

So nothing really has changed for me in that regard.

But yeah, I guess for me, it's still just try to get as much and more information that I possibly need and call and bug people to find out exactly what they are, what they have and what they're offering and doesn't match what they're saying online and whatever.

And that's, for me, that's been the best thing.

But like to what Anita said, you know, I'm going out with, you know, girlfriends and I'm all excited to go out for dinner at this place, and I get there and I can't get in, or I'm at a table that's beautiful, but I can't sit underneath it or, you know, something like that.

It's very deflating, and yeah, it's just to not be able to be included in all the fun that, you know, that everybody is having, it stinks.

And it's just, it's little things that make all the difference that I think are pretty easy to fix and cost effective, but yeah, it's just the feeling of not being a citizen like everybody else.

I'm, you know, a second rate citizen and it's just, it's not fair.

And that's one reason why, you know, I started with our AA with Anita when they were in Fairport with the canal and they just, she had everything all set up.

It was great and it was easy.

I could kayak and I, you know, it was fantastic.

And playing pickleball with her organization and everything is, you know, thought of that I need to get in there.

So I'm hopeful that that's gonna continue with other businesses, but it is very deflating to not be included.

- Absolutely.

- One of the things that we do when we're working with a business is we try to address that right off the bat, but as they're understanding the different concepts, we encourage them to put an accessibility tab on their website, and then they say, "Well, what do we put on it?"

Well, think of every phone call you could get, you know, every time Kerrie could call you and ask you a particular question, she's already told us that she's going to websites first.

So can we put that kind of thing on our website?

We work with Genesee Land Trust, so they manage land, but they have trails for a lot of the public access land.

And they're like, what do we put on our website?

Well, descriptions of the trails because I can park in your parking lot and see the trail going out into the wild blue yonder, but I don't know what's out there and I don't know, before I get there, if I should bring my power wheelchair, if my walker's gonna be enough.

I don't know if I'm gonna get halfway and have to turn back.

But if you can provide trail descriptions, which they do now, that's on their tabs, very rich trail descriptions with photos.

So if you say it has roots on it and I'm thinking how many roots, how big are the roots?

Like I'll take it on if I can get out there.

But you've got that information for me, then I am much more likely to go give it a try than I am if you just say you have 10 beautiful trails with scenic views out there.

They've added on theirs even in the descriptions of, because there's no restrooms out in the wild blue yonder.

So they tell you where the closest restroom is.

So that you're able to think about that when you're out in nature that that's going to be a consideration and how far are you going to need to go?

There are ways that we can put those very small things on an accessibility tab.

We have this, we have elevated tables, we have braille materials, we have menus that are in, we have great lighting, I think we talked about before the show, great lighting so that you can see your menu.

We have staff that have apps on their phones so that they can better communicate with you.

If you have a preference of your app, tell us.

Like we could do that ahead of time.

So anybody looking at your venue online before they ever come, you've given them a chance to explore it without even having to make the phone call except to just double check.

Sometimes that peace of mind is what we're really trying to- - That human interaction piece.

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

Leslie and Shane, you've heard Anita and Kerrie talk about some of the technologies or some of the tools and resources.

Are you implementing any of those where you are?

- We do have an app that we have utilized through Heartland and we do use, I would say, technology to communicate oftentimes.

I'm making notes though on ways that, again, I can improve upon that even more.

So although I think we have made some headway on that, I think that we could be even better.

And I really, our website is also a work in progress and I love the idea of getting more information out there before, I think people feel very comfortable calling and we are very conscientious of, we have different, like, you know, table heights and whatnot.

We are very conscientious, but to get that information to them right away, if that's the first place, which let's face it, I think most of us start there.

I think that that's the first place that they could get some of that information.

So I'm making a lot of notes here, and yeah, just, I think there's opportunity there to, like I said, just enhance upon that a little bit.

- Yeah.

I too am making a lot of notes.

We have a beautiful website and both our desktop website and our mobile website do have different accessible features, which is now required by law.

With that said, we have video footage and a lot of photos of our rooms and our amenities.

The notes that I'm taking are more of, you know, can we get specific, you know, something like table height, can I include that in photos?

Can I include bed height in photos?

So working with our marketing team to do that.

One of the biggest apps that we use within the hospitality industry is for language.

So Google Translate is very important.

There's also some great ASL apps.

I think one is called literally The ASL App.

So teaches you the alphabet, but also some common signs if you're trying to communicate with someone who's deaf.

With that said, you know, the IDEA Committee, the main work that we do is put e-learnings together to train that staff.

So we're using technology in that way as well to help those frontline employees to, you know, introduction to ASL, size inclusivity, mental and wellbeing in the workplace.

And then also we're going to start talking about disability advocacy as well and creating a training around that.

- That's great.

Maybe you could share a little bit about the partnership with MCC that's been key to the work.

- Yeah, absolutely.

So Rebecca Griffin is the chair of the hospitality department at Monroe Community College.

I've had the pleasure of co-chairing the committee with her and she has done a great job of applying for grants from the Statler Foundation, which has fueled a lot of the ability to do this work.

We are doing the work to put the trainings together and then to put it out to the community.

Right here, I have our resource guide as well.

This was easy, this was putting different resources together in a PDF that we could share, but really taking the time to sit individuals down, have trainings, be videotaped, transcribed, go through an online quiz, that takes time, effort, and financial resources.

So these grants have been a blessing and they've given us the ability to work with the Visitors Industry Council and help our members have access to these resources.

And part of our work for 2025 is to amplify and, you know, shout from the rooftops that we have these available and we want our members, I believe there's over 500 members of the Visitors Industry Council through Visit Rochester.

We want them to know that we have these available and to use them and, you know, it is not a one size fits all approach.

There are so many different areas that you need to be considerate of and knowing at least where the first stop is, where you can go for resources.

I think it's a great starting point, but like we've been saying during this conversation, there's so many opportunities and we have to continue the conversation.

- Yeah, absolutely.

And so we have the hospitality program at MCC, RIT obviously has a hospitality program, so we've got young people and students who are coming out of these programs already having kind of that awareness of accessibility and inclusivity and so they're bringing that to wherever they're going to work, right?

- Yes.

- Yeah.

- And for those frontline employees, think of the front desk agent, bartenders, servers, you know, who have that real time first interaction with the guests, the host, or at the restaurant who answers the phone, you know, we want them comfortable, we want to give them the language to use so they don't clam up or maybe answer something incorrectly because, you know, we are in hospitality.

We get people, like you're saying, Kerrie, who call and maybe don't believe what they see online.

Maybe it's not as clear as it could be.

So we want our associates to have all of the tools possible available to them so we could be as welcoming as possible.

- And providing an opportunity once they are on staff for them to give continuous feedback based on what they're experiencing frontline.

- Absolutely, absolutely.

- I see you shaking your head as well.

- No, I mean, I just think by empowering them with information, it's bringing confidence which then is going to lend that everyone to have like a better experience.

And again, hospitality, that's kind of our job is to make people, like, give them the opportunity to feel comfy, get out with their friends, with their family, and just have a great time and not feel like different than anyone else.

So I think just, I really agree with what you're saying and I look forward to reading that guide.

- Yeah, and another note that I wrote down from Anita is competence and confidence.

So empowering our associates to really have the competence and the confidence to execute guest service for everyone.

- One of the ways that Kerrie and I shared an experience was you mentioned that pickleball class and I had gotten a gym so that we could introduce inclusive pickleball into our community.

And I had said, "Kerrie, I need you to come, need you to sign up and play pickleball."

And she said, "Oh, okay."

And so the venue was a, you know, when it was built, it was a state-of-the-art kind of venue and which means it had been compliance with the ADA.

And so that wasn't the issue from parking lot in, but one of the things Kerrie said to me afterwards was, 'cause I said, "What'd you think?"

And I was thinking the pickleball class.

And she said, "Well, I have to tell you that when I came in the building, which I could get in, 'cause they had automatic door openers and a lowered front desk, the thing that I saw on these very pleasant people's faces was above them was a thought bubble."

And she said, "I saw it upstairs and I took the elevator downstairs and I saw it above those friendly people at the desk too."

And in that thought bubble that she could see was, what is she doing here?

Where is she going?

What's she going to?

What is she supposed to, what am I supposed to do?

I mean, it's complete lack of confidence because no one had told any of the staff that would be greeting people that day that there was going to be an inclusive pickleball class in the downstairs gym.

And they just didn't know.

And she said, "If you hadn't told me to be there and I knew you were gonna be somewhere in that facility, I would have turned around because the thought bubble speaks volumes."

Very pleasant people, you assured me of that, facial expression, all of that.

But you could tell they had no sense of expecting you to be there.

And that to me is what we see 85% of inclusion being, inclusion work when you're working on it is how much are you expecting somebody to be there?

What have you done about it before that person's got there and how does it feel when they're actually there, and how competent is everybody in your organization that could engage along the way?

And it is what we expect of everybody.

We haven't necessarily brought it in yet in all the spaces to disability inclusion.

And I think another really cool thing would be, can we as a community incentivize the change?

So as we provide the resources, can we somehow, in this industry of hospitality, can we incentivize all the 500 members actually making the changes?

And that would be systems level, you know, really aggressive, persistent kind of changes.

So I'm very interested in understanding where in the Rochester area, how we can incentivize that level of change.

- And that story about the thought bubbles, Kerrie, is just so poignant and I thank Anita for sharing on your behalf.

Is there anything else you would like to share?

What's the top one or two things you would wanna share with folks in the hospitality sector?

- I think the biggest thing is to have somebody in a wheelchair come in and actually sit down and go through your business.

And some of them are easy changes, some of them are not, but like Anita said, they make all the difference when I'm actually going out and, you know, and being in a hotel or going to a restaurant.

It makes a world of difference to be able, like, you know, any able-bodied person to just go out for dinner and have an enjoyable dinner.

If, you know, I can't do that, it's not very fun.

So I think the biggest thing would be to actually talk to people and see, am I doing this right?

Is there anything that I can do?

And just for me, I think I will always continue to do my homework and to make sure that what I'm getting into is going to be what I expect.

- [Sarah] And we can all do better in supporting you.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

- Absolutely.

Thank you so much, Kerrie, for sharing your experience this hour.

Thank you to Anita, Leslie, and Shane.

I wanna quickly here in our last couple of minutes give folks an opportunity to share how our audience can find you.

So Anita, we'll start with you.

- Sure, so online, we're at rochesteraccessible adventures.org.

You can find us on social media as well.

Love to have you follow along, become a community ally.

We have a number of ways that we can get interested people involved in this.

- Great, and you have your inclusion ambassador training as well.

- Yeah, inclusion ambassador training is a really easy way to get started and then there's certainly levels that we pull you in and help be a part of this process in Rochester.

- Great, thank you.

Leslie, how do we find Lovin' Cup?

- Well, we're over by RIT as aforementioned, but lovincup.com, you can find almost all that info and I would love to be a part of what you guys are doing, and continuing to grow this acknowledgement of just, you know, making people feel welcome.

- Great, thank you.

And Shane, folks can go to the Visit Rochester website, learn more.

- Absolutely, and if you're interested in joining the Visitors Industry Council, just shoot them an email.

- Great, thank you so much to everybody.

Thank you to my guests, Leslie, Kerrie, Shane and Anita.

I'm Sarah Murphy Abbamonte sitting in for Evan Dawson.

Thank you to our executive producer, Megan Mack, Julie Williams, Rob Braden, and the whole "Connections" team.

And thank you for listening to member-supported public radio.

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