Oakville charity finalist for Ontario accessible tourism award

An Oakville charity’s goal of bringing boating to everyone is up for a prestigious provincial award.

Charterability has been nominated as a finalist for the Accessible Tourism Award at The Ontario Tourism Awards of Excellence gala later this month.

The annual award is presented to organizations, businesses, and individuals who represent the quality of offerings that make Ontario a destination of choice—innovations, events, employers, and the tourism champions who make it all possible.

“Huge congrats to Oakville’s @CharterAbility on being a finalist for the Accessible Tourism Award at The Ontario Tourism Awards of Excellence! Well deserved,” Visit Oakville, an incorporated, not-for-profit, destination marketing organization, tweeted on X (formerly Twitter).

The Oakville charity, launched in 2023 by Stephen Cull and six other people, is dedicated to providing accessible, recreational, boating at no cost to people of all ages who are deprived by virtue of their physical limitations or personal circumstances.

A quadriplegic following a tobogganing accident in 1991, Cull decided he wanted to start a charter service for people with disabilities after being invited to a wheelchair-accessible lakeside cottage with a pontoon boat in Muskoka by some friends.

Other finalists for the Accessible Tourism Award include Destination Toronto (AccessNow) and the Hillside Community Festival of Guelph.

The awards will be presented on Wednesday, October 23, 2024 in Hamilton.