DREAM Adaptive Recreation

DREAM Adaptive Recreation (DREAM) is a 501(c)3 non-profit with a mission to enhance the quality of life of individuals with disabilities by providing year-round outdoor adaptive recreational opportunities. There are countless mental, physical, and social benefits to being out in the natural world and DREAM works diligently to ensure that everyone has access. In 1985, five years before the Americans with Disabilities Act was enacted by Congress, a group of Flathead residents banded together to make outdoor activities more accessible to people with disabilities. Dottie Maitland was operating a tour company at the time and discovered the inaccessibility to hotels, public parks and recreational sites for the disabled. Joined by Jane Lopp and Larry Dominick, they traveled to Washington D.C. and met with the United States Access Board–a federal agency that promotes equality for people with disabilities. The information they gathered from the trip would shape the way the group would operate and define their mission to make public places in the Flathead accessible to people with disabilities. In the early days, DREAM focused on the creation of an accessibility guide to the Flathead Valley, on access projects in local parks, and in 1988 the DREAM ski program started at Big Mountain. What began as a small non-profit organization helping a small number of disabled adults and children has blossomed annually. In 2009, DREAM expanded its reach by adding summer adaptive recreation opportunities. In 2024, DREAM served 377 unique individuals, ages 5 to adults, including Military Veterans through 1,550 lessons and opportunities in: downhill skiing and snowboarding, nordic skiing, mountain biking, paddle boarding, kayaking, waterskiing, wakeboarding and wake surfing. In addition to daily programming, DREAM continues to focus on access projects by collaborating with partners such as Glacier National Park, the US Forest Service, MT State Parks, and other nonprofit organizations.