The place that I reviewed for my ADA assessment was a non profit. I reviewed Cornerstone Church to see how they did following the ADA guidelines. It was weird for me because I had never looked around to see what it would be like to be disabled and try to navigate our world. As with most of the assignments in this class I was surprised by what I found and not always in a good way.

Upon entering the parking lot I looked around to see how the parking was. It turns out there were fifteen handicapped parking spaces and eight of them were able to fit a van with a ramp for a disabled person to exit. From there, there was a ramp followed by a huge wide path that leads up to the church doors. There was a ramp that would allow them to make their way from the parking lot to the entrance.
When we reach the entrance is when we run into our first problem. The doors were pull out only. I had never noticed, but they are really heavy. I brought my electronic fishing scale and the pull measured at seven pounds, two more than the ADA guidelines recommend. All you need to do to lighten the load on the door is install smaller springs in the door and it will lighten the pull on the door. All the pathways, doorways and door handles were of acceptable width to allow a wheelchair to pass everywhere accept for one.

The café had those movable rope guides to funnel people through a line and up to the counter for the order. They were only twenty-four inches apart and therefore were too thin to allow a wheelchair access to the counter via the line. Also when they reached the counter it was extremely high and was in no way allowing for someone to order from a wheel chair or to take anything off the counter. A way to remedy this would be to provide a shorter counter for the handicapped and would require some remodeling. To allow for a wider route to the counter they would only need to space the guides a little farther apart.

On the signs to all the classrooms there was Braille to allow the blind to find the rooms that they were looking for. There are also two handicap restrooms to accommodate the disabled. There were bars to provide balance as well as plenty of space to maneuver a wheel chair in them. The lights and sink were low enough to allow for all access. The doors to the entry way for the auditorium were of a light enough pull to allow for easy opening. Also there were ramps down the rows that were wide enough for a car practically to drive up them. There were also ramps to and from the stage to allow for access to the stage. All in all, there were a few improvements needed to allow for better handicap access but I thought that they had done a decent job getting things up to par. With a few small changes the place would be completely able to allow for excellent disabled access.