The Challenged Athletes Foundation in San Diego has announced grants totaling $2.1 million to help more than eleven hundred disabled individuals in twenty countries become — and stay — involved in sports.

Awarded through the foundation's Access for Athletes program, which aims to bridge the gap between physical rehabilitation and an active lifestyle, the grants will help underwrite training and coaching, adaptive sports equipment, and competition-related expenses. This year, the foundation approved 80 percent of the grant requests it received, 15 percent of which were awarded to wounded military personnel and first responders through the foundation's Operation Rebound program.

"Most medical insurance companies do not cover the adaptive sporting equipment challenged athletes need to get involved and stay active and healthy," said CAF executive director Virginia Tinley. "CAF exists to help bridge these economic barriers and to make sports and physical fitness more accessible to challenged athletes."