What makes a community great? A healthy economy, most would agree. Safety is important too, as is that general feeling of a place being welcoming to both residents and polite visitors alike, if only to encourage them to spend time and money there, which again leads back to having a healthy economy. But on all those fronts, many communities miss appealing to a sizeable portion of the population: the disabled.
As of May 2026, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) lists more than one in four adults as having some type of disability in the United States. Add in the still-common stigma of being disabled, and the CDC’s given percentage of 28.7% may be a severe underestimation. Being disabled can involve a wide range of issues, from being confined to a wheelchair to just having difficulty hearing, or needing a quiet space to avoid being overwhelmed a bit more easily than the average Joe. “If you have limitations, if things get to be a challenge, if there are barriers,” that is disability, said Jenna Udenberg, founder of Above & Beyond With U – a local nonprofit focused on educating communities about disability. They work with governmental agencies, other nonprofits, and individuals to provide assessments and free consultations aimed at making accessibility improvements.
According to Udenberg, roughly $50 billion per year is spent by disabled people on leisure travel. Yet in her experience as a native of the North Shore, the region is not very accessible for the disabled. “I always felt like I lived here, like I belonged here, but part of me didn’t.” As one of many examples, when asked by the Wiggle Your Toes Foundation for recommendations on traveling the area with young amputees, Udenberg had trouble finding places that would accommodate them. And if a place cannot reasonably accommodate a disabled person, Udenberg said, it will simply lose part of its audience and customer base.
Udenberg cautioned that word spreads fast in disabled culture, which causes economic impact if an area can or cannot cater to them. One bad experience can warn off an entire community, leading individuals to say, “I didn’t spend money on the Shore; I didn’t get those memories.” She wants places to see the worth in appealing to the disabled, not just for tourists, but for the many locals already living and having to deal with their disability in an area often seemingly oblivious to their problems.
“Everybody is going to experience disability in some way, shape, or form,” Udenberg said, pointing out that even those healthy while young become naturally disabled as they grow older, even if they might just describe it as “oh, we’re just of a certain age.” With Above & Beyond With U, she wants to “not just increase awareness but help people take that next step” to make businesses and communities where disabled people feel welcome. One key step in that, she thinks, is removing barriers “that keep people from feeling like they truly belong and that their voices are being heard.”
Marcia Oates, Silver Bay resident and a member of the Above & Beyond With Us Board, said that sometimes people want to make improvements but aren’t sure what to do or where to start. “Where should we put our time and our effort and our dollars to make our community more welcoming to everyone?” The two noted there are many cases in the region where architects and builders don’t plan ahead for accessibility due to the perception of added costs, opting to fulfill any legal requirements after the fact. This, Oates said, is a misconception. “You can save money by not doing things wrong that you have to correct.” Even when projects are done technically within the parameters of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), they “meet code, but they don’t meet needs,” Udenberg said.
Above & Beyond With U held a gathering of community leaders this past week for a calm chat over where things stand in the region, and especially Silver Bay, at present. Oates emphasized keeping the meeting positive, noting it is easy to feel overwhelmed with what needs to be done, making it important to congratulate yourself on what’s been done already. Just within Silver Bay, there have been several improvements over the past few years. To list just a few: The golf course and country club added a ramp, deck, and accessible restroom. Above & Beyond With U has worked alongside the Bay Days committee to have better vendor area accommodations. The City’s new website is being brought up to state standards. The new Trailhead Center, which the meeting was held in, was also built with accessibility in mind and boasts a restroom and shower area Udenberg called “impressive.” After its completion, the Center underwent another improvement to the lower door, which Silver Bay’s City Administrator, Lana Fralich, explained was too heavy for many with physical disabilities to easily open. Fralich added that, if she had not had the experience of witnessing her own parents’ struggles, she might not have been aware the door was an issue. “These are the little things that you learn the hard way,” she said. Even small, no-cost improvements to the space, such as moving the microwave’s location, have helped make the space feel more welcoming to those with mobility disabilities.
There is room for improvement, however. Lutsen came up as an example of a place in need of basic changes. Attendees also pointed to a problem closer to them: the Trailhead Center meeting room’s acoustics make it difficult to hear, to the extent that those with hearing difficulty might find it impossible to follow along with conversation. Fralich confirmed officials are aware and fixes are being considered. Silver Bay resident and President/ CEO of Rocky Wall Entertainment Nelson French noted that Silver Bay was built before the ADA existed and is due for updates across the board, but that going ‘above and beyond’ will require people to be creative. The more solid assessments done and the more hard data they have to solve problems facing the disabled, the better.
Identifying a problem and drafting a solution, however, is only the first hurdle. Hiring contractors is currently more difficult than expected across the region, with attendees confirming the issue ranges at least as far as Ely. North Shore Area Partners Board Chair Mary Planten-Krell described her ongoing attempt at a more accessible bathroom update – a small project, and one she thought would be done quickly and easily. But after almost a year of looking for contractors for her market-rate project, “I don’t have a single bid. It’s ridiculous.” Fralich seconded encountering the lack of contractors while dealing with projects for the City of Silver Bay itself. Udenberg thinks there are several factors to blame, among them the ballooning costs of insurance and gas/diesel prices. Working together, she thinks, will lend bargaining strength to their search for reliable contractors to fulfill accessibility projects.
Udenberg hopes not only to have businesses, nonprofits, and governments collaborate, but different disability groups as well. She explained there is a current problem of those with different disabilities being “siloed” and not working together, which reduces their power to push for changes. She tries to keep updated on different communities and their unique challenges with the idea that adding accessibility improves accessibility across the board. That prospect of unique challenges is also why she tries to avoid generalities or speaking on behalf of someone if she has not shared their “lived experience.” To her, Above & Beyond With U stands out from many disability nonprofits by being an organization where the disabled can speak for themselves rather than having someone speak on their behalf.
The North Shore has a long history of being a destination for tourists, but both Udenberg and Oates had concerns about the lack of marketing towards those with disabilities. “It’s a lost opportunity,” Oates explained. “Many of us have children. And we want to have those family vacations that are memorable for our kids. Parents with disabled kids aren’t any different.” It would be a natural step towards broadening the North Shore’s influence, appeal, and economic power in the long run. Many of the benefits for tourists would also naturally end up benefiting locals as well. Nelson French shared plans with the group for a Silver Bay project currently in development: The City Center Park and Amphitheatre, along with the Company Town Interpretive Walk, which would offer a stroll through Silver Bay’s history. Accessibility was a key component, he said, as “you know, we’re an aging community here.”
Oates believes another way communities can benefit from accessibility improvements is by adding to the local workforce. “Maybe we are missing a whole segment of employable people because we are not reaching out to them,” including making even small changes to accommodate physical or other disabilities which might hinder an otherwise fantastic employee. Udenberg agreed that in her experience, long-term disabilities are often not accommodated by employers on the North Shore. Adding flexibility to scheduling, adding part-time positions, or even just allowing employees to sit during certain types of work would make a difference. As-is, Oates continued, “it’s a wasted resource.”
They believe normalizing disability would go a long way towards improving the situation. Oates brought up the Hidden Disabilities Sunflower concept started by a company in the United Kingdom, which gives a visible way for those who aren’t obviously disabled at a glance to “signal their need for extra help in public,” according to their website. It involves wearing a lanyard with sunflowers on it and has become recognized at several airports and other public locations across the world. Its adoption in the North Shore, she thinks, might help locals realize the sheer number of those with disabilities in the region.
Even small improvements, like adding more benches for people to rest, can help. “It doesn’t take much to make people feel welcome,” Oates said. Basic, no-cost training for employees could “mean the world” for some disabled customers. Planten-Krell highlighted the sheer number of those with hearing and vision difficulties in Silver Bay, many of whom have trouble following along with public meetings and events due to low-quality sound systems. She believes recent technological advances could help many of them if they had access to more resources and education on the topic.
Going ‘above and beyond’ to Udenberg means surpassing basic ADA requirements, which were developed decades ago and have rarely been updated. She has been disabled for 38 years and wants others to see that “disability is not a bad word” but simply a descriptor for certain lived experiences. She shouted out several organizations which have been a help so far, like the North of North Resort near Ely and related nonprofit Adaptive Wilderness Within Reach. The Minnesota Council on Disability, she added, is a huge resource and “we should be making these folks do things for us on the Shore and rural Minnesota as much as they’re doing in the metro.”
Above & Beyond With U has received grant funding for site assessments and free consultations for public spaces. They are currently looking for volunteers and projects.
