Our Mobile Sensory Tent: Making Accessibility and Community Engagement a Reality for "A Life Like Yours"

For some people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, attending large-scale events, fairs and festivals in the community can be an overwhelming experience -- and we are blessed in Hanover with so many great community events! Sometimes, there are just too many sights, sounds, smells, and new activity that it can all become too much, even if it's an enjoyable event.

We are working diligently on a new project to help increase engagement in the community event setting: A Mobile Sensory Tent! We hosted our first tent outing at "Operation Cow Drop" on May 3rd, and it was a great success!

We are building our Sensory Tent as a place of retreat, calm, safety and engagement with things to help an individual regulate and restore the body's responses to the stimulating environment at the event. We hope this will provide a place for families and caregivers to support their loved ones and guests and that time here will foster a return to the event that everyone came out to enjoy.

We need more field volunteers to help us support the Sensory Tent at the events we attend. We hope you will consider joining in for an hour or two (look for the Sensory Tent icon in our events). Our hope is to see the tent used at more and more events in our community and that, eventually, we will train people to reserve and use our tent for themselves or even build their own Sensory Tent. With your support, we can get there!