Dakota Communities Honored with Boggs Mitchell Award for Inclusive Recreation

Dakota Communities was honored by The Arc of Minnesota with The Boggs Mitchell Award during Arc’s Annual Awards Banquet on October 24^th at the Plymouth Radisson Hotel. The award recognizes a chapter or community organization providing year-round, challenging and inclusive recreational/leisure-time programs for people with disabilities.   The Arc of Minnesota is an advocacy organization supporting people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their families.

Toni Boelter, Director of Community Life, accepted the award on behalf of Dakota Communities as a founding member of its Therapeutic Recreation Department in 1997.  During her 18 years with the organization, she has worked to put into practice the idea that people with disabilities should live, work, volunteer and play alongside their families and neighbors.

“Therapeutic Recreation is more than bingo and bowling,” said Boelter. “It’s creating opportunities for people to become active participants in their own lives and communities through volunteerism, sports, gardening, wellness initiatives, and the arts.”

Dakota Communities has created a host of inclusion initiatives in collaboration with groups such as The University of Minnesota’s Landscape Arboretum, The Boy Scouts of America, Wilderness Inquiry, St. Paul Jewish Community Center, and the YMCA.