Featured from left to right are: Philip Woodward, Communications Project Manager (Department of Health and Human Services); Robin Kalish, Park Superintendent (Department of Environment and Natural Resources); Dave Cook, District Superintendent (Department of Environment and Natural Resources); and Dalton Holmes, Design and Construction Services, State Construction Office (Department of Administration).

Since 1986, the Department of Health and Human Services’ ACCESS North Carolina program has partnered with the State Construction Office in the Department of Administration to improve accessibility for visitors with disabilities at state-owned tourist attractions. 

These attractions have included state parks in the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, state historic sites in the Department of Cultural Resources and educational state Forests in the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

This month Philip Woodward, DHHS Communications Project Manager, and Dalton Holmes from the State Construction Office visited Hanging Rock State Park in Danbury (Stokes County north of Winston-Salem) to discuss ACCESS North Carolina improvements. 

Hanging Rock State Park currently has one wheelchair-accessible picnic bench and an accessible fishing pier. The ACCESS North Carolina program plans to increase recreational opportunities for visitors with mobility disabilities and their families and travel companions at North Carolina’s 2012 Park of the Year by funding additional accessible picnic benches, an accessible picnic shelter and better access to the park’s lake beach and boathouse. These improvements will also benefit other groups of visitors such as senior citizens who currently need to trek up a long flight of wooden steps or a steep hill to reach a picnic shelter near the lake.

After the design development, review and approval process, construction is anticipated to begin during the second half of 2014.