The Challenged Athletes Foundation announced that it has distributed funds to 1,102 individual grant recipients in 27 countries totaling $1.7 million, a new record for CAF, according to a press release.
The grants are part of its Access for Athletes Program, which enables physically challenged athletes to participate in athletic activities. The funding will cover expenses including athletic equipment, such as handcycles, sports chairs and prosthetics, training and coaching and competition expenses.
“Most medical insurance companies do not cover the adaptive sporting equipment challenged athletes need to not only get involved, but remain competitive,” Virginia Tinley, CAF’s executive director, stated in the release. “CAF exists to help bridge the economic barriers to participation in sports for physically challenged athletes. Each application is carefully reviewed by our staff and scored using a custom-designed software program. We want to make sure that the people who receive our grants really need our help.”
