{"id":149372,"date":"2026-01-25T23:53:26","date_gmt":"2026-01-25T23:53:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/149372\/"},"modified":"2026-01-25T23:53:26","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T23:53:26","slug":"aquarium-of-the-pacific-to-uplift-disabled-community-with-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/149372\/","title":{"rendered":"Aquarium of the Pacific to uplift disabled community with festival"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img width=\"800\" height=\"400\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/unnamed1-800x400.jpg\" class=\"attachment-ceris-m-2_1 size-ceris-m-2_1 wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The Aquarium of the Pacific will host the 23rd annual Festival of Human Abilities on Jan. 24 and 25, featuring the Rollettes, as pictured here at the 22nd annual festival. Photo courtesy of The Aquarium of the Pacific<\/p>\n<p>The Aquarium of the Pacific will host its 23rd annual <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aquariumofpacific.org\/events\/info\/festival_of_human_abilities\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Festival of Human Abilities<\/a>, which celebrates the disabled community\u2019s talents, on Jan. 24 and Jan. 25 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.<\/p>\n<p>The weekend will be full of art, booths and a whole host of performances. Performers who learned to adapt to their mediums, including dancers, musicians and other artists, will present workshops.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe [festival] aims to celebrate people with disabilities while connecting people with participating groups,\u201d festival manager Chelsey Coleman said in an email statement. \u201cWe include live presentations like wheelchair dancing, American Sign Language (ASL) singing, hip hop dance and jazz music.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>To honor contributions made by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollettesdance.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Rollettes<\/a> (a California-based women\u2019s wheelchair dance team) to the lives of women and girls with disabilities worldwide, the aquarium will present the team with the Glenn McIntyre Heritage Award on Saturday at 11:30 a.m.<\/p>\n<p>The Rollettes, founded by Chelsie Hill in 2012, offers a wide range of activities, including dance classes, mentorship programs and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollettesdance.com\/re21\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Rollettes Experience.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The aquarium will provide accessibility features for the event, including sign language interpreters.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAccess has always been a priority at the aquarium and we do that in many ways year-round,\u201d Coleman said in the statement.<\/p>\n<p>The aquarium already has many accessibility features in place. Exhibits are wheelchair accessible and service dogs are welcome. There are audio tours of the exhibits, and exhibit videos are closed-captioned.<\/p>\n<p>General admission tickets can be purchased on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aquariumofpacific.org\/visit\/prices_hours?gad_source=1&amp;gad_campaignid=324135857&amp;gbraid=0AAAAAD-lfcO1CYWIo3Lsf5mcORPi-6UZX&amp;gclid=Cj0KCQiA1czLBhDhARIsAIEc7ugRcGDwAS2OlK6EjIK8XAB8M76ZNg_rLdqTDIY3wZxnwUy3pVTu_hsaAkvDEALw_wcB\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">aquarium website<\/a> for $44.95 for adults and $34.95 for children.<\/p>\n<p>                                                                                                                                                                                                                <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Jason Green\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1769385206_585_ea46ca1a60771e0e8cac5d76bf1830bc34f718a6b6dabd409deb9b0c7a87a90d.jpeg\"  class=\"avatar avatar-80 photo\" height=\"80\" width=\"80\"\/>                                                                                                                                                                                                            <\/p>\n<p>Jason Green is a fourth-year journalism major entering his last year at CSULB. He transferred from Cypress College as a third-year student. Jason was previously a contributor and is now an Arts &amp; Life assistant editor. He previously interned for EdSource, with two articles published under them. Jason plans on reporting on disabilities after graduation, as he is disabled himself.<\/p>\n<p>                                                                        <a href=\"https:\/\/lbcurrent.com\/author\/jasongreen\/\" title=\"View all posts\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n                                                                            View all posts<br \/>\n                                                                        <\/a><\/p>\n<p>                                                                                                                                <a class=\"ppma-author-user_email-profile-data ppma-author-field-meta ppma-author-field-type-email\" aria-label=\"Email\" href=\"https:\/\/lbcurrent.com\/artslife\/2026\/01\/23\/aquarium-of-the-pacific-set-to-uplift-disability-community-with-festival\/mailto:jason.green01@student.csulb.edu\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"> <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Aquarium of the Pacific will host the 23rd annual Festival of Human Abilities on Jan. 24 and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":149373,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-149372","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-long-beach","8":"tag-long-beach","9":"tag-long-beach-headlines","10":"tag-long-beach-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}