This Saturday, October 5th from 8:30 am - 1:00 pm, a group of volunteers led by 15 year old Evan Barnard from Johns Creek High School will be building a Braille Nature Trail at the Gwinnett Environmental and Heritage Center with a lot of help from Home Depot.
A Braille Nature Trail is an outdoor nature trail with special features that enable the trail to be utilized by the visually impaired. The trails have guide ropes and posts so visitors can run their hands along them to follow the trail, as well as informative signs about the trail in both Braille and English print. Adding these features to existing nature trails improves the accessibility of trails so that visually-impaired people can experience and learn about nature. Evan's goal is to build these trails in communities all over Georgia, as well as raise awareness of the need to provide increased access to the outdoors to those with disabilities.
Evan will be joined by a group of volunteers including Home Depot in Buford. Home Depot has donated all of the posts and concrete for this project, as well as volunteering to do the installation. This Saturday Home Depot will be putting in the posts for the guide ropes for the trail.
Evan first had the idea to create a Braille Nature Trail when he was volunteering for the Nature Conservancy in Rome at the Marshall Forest's Big Pine Braille Nature Trail, which had been vandalized. For his project, Evan was recently awarded a grant through Disney in partnership with Youth Service America for young people who seek to improve their communities through service.
For more information email: natureplus1@gmail.com
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