Catching Up With CAT: Making New Connections

Thanks for joining us for this week’s Catching Up With CAT. Today’s post comes from Soph.

Last weekend I had the pleasure of attending Canoecopia 2026, and running the booth for Chicago Adventure Therapy. It was a full and exciting weekend. I met lots of new folks, learned about a bunch of exciting organizations I wasn’t familiar with, and enjoyed a few presentations.

My favorite part of the weekend was interacting with all of the people that stopped by our booth. There were quite a few people who stopped by that were already familiar with CAT, either because they’ve been involved with us in some way throughout the years, or because they had been following our organization online. It was really interesting to talk to them, hear what brought them to CAT, and what sticks out to them about our organization. Some stopping by just to tell us how much the work we are doing is important to them, and to thank us for our efforts.

There were also a lot of folks stopping by our booth who had never heard of us before and wanted to know more. These were by far some of my favorite moments of the weekend. Teaching people about CAT and what we do has always been a really enjoyable experience for me. Teaching people about the ways that access is not the same for everyone, and what we can do to break down those barriers is such an important part of this work. Sometimes social justice centered work feels never ending, and in a way it can be, but being able to educate more people and know that new people are always joining the fight fuels me with hope for our future. What we can do together is always going to be more impactful than what we can do alone.

Thanks for listening, and being a part of our team.

-Soph