Longer Days and More Ways to Bring Access to You

Welcome to the middle of summer! The prime season for outdoor events and enhancing accessibility. Heat, crowds, uneven terrain, limited food choices, and sensory overload exclude potential attendees from experiencing what you and your business or organization have to offer.

Every event, whether outdoor or virtual, should prioritize ease of participation for all abilities.

Relax, grab a drink 🥤, and scroll down to discover ways to adapt your events, useful tips, and how summer and accessibility intersect. ⬇️

Pivot to the Room: Accessibility in Practice

For the fourth year, I was honored to be invited back to the 5th Annual Bloom Newport community art festival. What started as an unexpected opportunity became its own lesson: as your event grows, so does your accessibility. 

This year, that meant going beyond the basics and a team that believed access could be as integral to the festival’s success as every other part of the planning process. What started as a small but mighty group and a parking lot painting demo grew into something much bigger.

As the demand for accessibility grew alongside the event and team itself, we pivoted. Expanding to meet the evolving needs of attendees. This year, access didn’t just support the festival. It helped it Bloom!🌺
That’s why I do this work. It’s not only about compliance. But to bring everyone into the same space together.

Want the full breakdown on how we made this happen? 👀
The case study is the first post on my brand-new Substack —dropping next week. Stay tuned! 🔔

Quick Tip for Your Next Event

Before your next event opens its doors, there’s one more place where accessibility needs to show up — online.

To help set that into motion, there is one easy way to put it into practice…

Social media! 📲

I know it seems trivial —but it’s true! A few small, tangible changes to your posts can help your content reach a wider audience, grow your outreach, and get more eyes on your event. Here are a few examples:

• Adding captions to your videos or reels

• Using a stronger color contrast between text and background

• Writing hashtags that are easy to read with capitalized words (e.g., #SummerEvent vs. #summerevent)

This tiny pivot is a lower-lift strategy that naturally incorporates accessibility into your event planning —without overhauling everything at once.

And guess what? I’m going to make it even easier for you!

Just for being a loyal reader, here’s a free downloadable checklist:

8 Tips to Make Your Social Media Accessible 📋

Add this to your planning toolkit today —and while you’re at it, let’s look at how it all started. ⬇️

Seasonal History of Access

July is a significant month—it marks both Disability Pride Month and the 36th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

On July 26, 1990, President George H.W. Bush signed the ADA into law, making it the first civil rights legislation to prohibit discrimination based on disability. Then, in July of 2015, to commemorate its 25th anniversary, the month was officially recognized as Disability Pride Month. A time to honor and acknowledge the 15% of the global population living with a disability.

The Disability Pride flag (shown above) was created in 2016 and later redesigned in 2021 by Ann Magill, an American disability activist.

Each color represents a different perspective of the human disability experience:
🖤 Faded Black background: honors disabled lives lost to injustice
💚 Green stripe: sensory disabilities
🩵 Blue stripe: emotional and psychiatric disabilities
🤍 White stripe: invisible and undiagnosed disabilities
💛 Gold stripe: neurodiversity
❤️ Red stripe: physical disabilities
⧅ Diagonal band: represents light and creativity cutting through the walls and barriers that separate disabled people from society.

Without the countless advocates and dedicated people who got us here, accessibility as a field simply would not exist.

So, whether you’re a business owner, an employer, or an artist —the next time you add captions, build ramp access, hire an ASL interpreter, or offer a gluten-free option—you’re showing up for the 1 in 4 U.S. adults living with a disability and the value they bring to your space and your work too.

To learn more about the history of the ADA and how it’s evolved to today, check out this documentary by American Experience | PBS, “Change Not Charity: The Americans with Disabilities Act”

(extended audio descriptions available)
(on-screen ASL interpretation available)
(closed captions available)

From the Consultant’s Desk and the Soul Behind it

Every season, I will share a poem dedicated to this moment in time — straight from the writer's desk. 📝

The Month of July 

the month of July is a strange time
usually supposed to be a time of hot dogs and barbecues,
but for me...

it’s being suspended in a time machine 
witnessing every summer over and over,
hearing the words of my loved ones reverberate through my ears: 
“oh it’s that time of year again’” 
filled with birthdays, special occasions, and cherished milestones, 

giving off the illusion of patriotic fanfare-
in reality, it’s a start, a reminder of the burnt stench that lingers in the air 
after lighting off the fireworks of denial, 

distracting from the chaos that still exists in the dark 
that surrounds the glowing light of the lit-up sky. 
for me, it was never about the parties or memories to be had. 

those were just distractions from my own chaos
laid hidden in the shadows, 

like enjoying a warm summer night looking up at the stars,
only to realize 
that while your cousins, sibling, and friends are doing so at camp, 
you are doing it in the parking lot of a hospital 
hoping to be distracted from the reality of your own summer night. 

as the years go on, people get older
more birthdays and more celebrations are to be had,
watching my cousins, sibling, and friends grow up on the edges of lakes 
while I grow up on the edges of the operating table. 

every year, the plans were the same:
the fanfare of the family parties 
clouding the annual trip 
down the whitewashed walls and ER waiting rooms. 

maybe if the masquerade 
of all the birthdays and milestones is flashy enough,
then people will be too blinded 
to notice the hospital-gowned elephant in the room. 

this year, however … is different-
the first time that the fanfare has been silenced, 

ironically, during a time when even the biggest of parades 
cannot distract people from the realities 
of the place of whitewashed walls and ER waiting rooms, 

the very place I spent the summers of my youth,
the very place we as a family spent those same summers
pretending it wasn’t real,

lighting off fireworks up into the sky as everyone around us looked up
while I smelled the burning ashes slowly falling back down to the ground. 

this year, however...
is the the first time I spend this month
out on my own, 

without my family,
without the reminders of chaos covered in confetti,
without the Polaroids of the never-attended summer camp trips,

no more rehearsing the answers to the inevitable question- “what did you do this summer?” 
no more putting on a face,
no more hiding the reality of why this month was chaotic
rather than patriotic.

now the month of July 
can just be a month in the middle of summer, 
‘cause really… that’s all it ever is. 

@tayloryountwrites©

Want to read more poems from this collection? Check out my debut book, My Sutured Mind: Poems of Healing Beyond Trauma, filled with other captivating words and beautiful artwork. 📚

In closing. ✨

Access is for everyone — and so is this newsletter. Thank you for spending part of your summer day here. This time is full of events, opportunities, and open doors. Keep a lookout for this issue’s case study and more insights to come. 👀

Until next season, 
Taylor  ♿️.