National Veterans Wheelchair Games comes to Detroit for the first time
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Detroit — A fierce sporting competition is bringing hundreds of wheelchair users and thousands of their friends, family and coaches to downtown Detroit this week for the National Veterans Wheelchair Games at Huntington Place.
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The world’s largest annual wheelchair sports and rehabilitation event solely for military veterans, the games include archery, softball, basketball, rugby and more at Huntington Place, plus additional activities like fishing, cycling, bowling and swimming at other sites around Metro Detroit, including Belle Isle.
This is the NVWG's first time in Detroit and first time in Michigan since 1987 when it was held in Ann Arbor.
"We have a little over 500 veterans coming in with their families," said Wheelchair Games co-director Jennifer Purser. "And we love Detroit, we're excited."
Purser said the games are co-presented by the Department of Veterans Affairs and Paralyzed Veterans of America.
"The Wheelchair Games is like a family reunion with a sporting event involved in it," she said. "We have so many veterans who've been participating with us for many years ... and then we have a large group of novices coming in, over 100. It's like a big family."
Purser says a lot of the athletes have been playing for years and it's a "very hearty competition" that includes men and women, and many newcomers and a variety of ages and skill levels participate.
"We do have some Paralympians that are here and we do have people that are just starting out, learning about different events," Purser said. "Overall, it embraces everything that you'd want to learn about adaptive sports. If you're a veteran that isn't signed up for the National Veterans Wheelchair Games and you want to learn more, this is a great opportunity."
Anyone in the area is welcome to come watch the competitions, and, better yet, there are many volunteer opportunities for both adults and teens.
"Come on out, bring your friends, bring your family," Purser said, adding that volunteers are crucial to a multi-layered event like theirs. "I promise they'll want to do it again."
Metro Detroiter Alan Hejl is the founder and lead accessibility consultant at Spark Access, which advocates for accessibility and disability inclusion in the mobility industry. He's been helping spread awareness and drum up support for the National Veterans Wheelchair Games coming to Detroit.
Hejl says having a cohesive and connected disability community in Detroit is still coming together, and an event like the NVGW could help with that.
"When the National Veteran Wheelchair Games chooses a host city, they're also looking at cities that don't have a strong presence where maybe through a unifying event, it forms better connections ... it forms a better culture around things," he said, adding that more than 30% of people in Michigan have disabilities, so this is not exactly a niche community.
Hejl says that the hundreds of wheelchair users coming to downtown Detroit for the games this week will find many accessibility features around Huntington Place.
The People Mover, which connects to the convention center, is very accessible, and the QLine is also wheelchair-friendly. Both are free to ride and have air conditioning.
"The one thing we've got going for us is we're a very flat city compared to almost every other city out there. My wife being a wheelchair user, that's one thing we tell (visitors) is that Detroit, as a whole, is very flat and easy to get around," he said.
Among the bars and restaurants nearby Huntington Plaza, Hejl recommends Supergeil and Batch Brewing in Corktown. The Monarch rooftop cocktail lounge, the Apparatus Room and Hudson Cafe restaurants are also on Spark Access' guide to eating and drinking in Detroit.
Hejl also points to Barda near Woodbridge. They are one of the only restaurants in town with a "sunken" bar where the bar seats are lower, allowing wheelchair users the ability to easily belly up to the bar for cocktails like anyone else.
"My wife and I, we really enjoy our date nights there," he said.
National Veterans Wheelchair Games
July 9-14
Huntington Place
1 Washington Blvd., Detroit
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This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: National Veterans Wheelchair Games comes to Detroit for the first time