In keeping with our mission, we aim to make our building, services, and activities accessible to everyone, whatever their abiliies. Here are some of the ways we strive to maintain and increase accessibility:
Accessing our building
USNF’s accessible entrance is on the right side of the building, if facing USNF from the front, near the rear. For about 15 minutes before each service, a greeter is at the door to provide assistance.
On-street parking and parking in city lots (except the parking garage) is free on Sundays. There are a few accessible parking spaces in a small municipal parking lot along the side of our building nearest to Northampton City Hall. To reach it, turn onto Mayor Sean Dunphy Way, a driveway off Main Street between City Hall and USNF. Our accessible entrance is easily reached, without stairs, from that lot. Because the lot is small, we encourage people who need the accessible parking to arrive 15 minutes before Sunday services in order to secure a space, and we ask others to avoid parking there.
- Directions to USNF and parking
- Information about accessible parking and plates in Northampton (links to city website)
- Map of parking lots in downtown Northampton (links to city website)
Drop-offs can be made in the small lot near City Hall, even if spaces are not available there. The driver can then turn around and park in one of the other nearby lots. Drop-offs can also be made at the accessible side entrance by taking the driveway off Main Street on the other side of USNF (between our building and Memorial Hall); no parking is available there.
We have an elevator near the accessible entrance that can be used to access all main areas of the building, including the restrooms (lower level).
Accessing our services and events
We offer large-print Orders of Meeting and hymnals for our services.
We have assistive listening devices available at our services.
For those unable to travel to our building, our Sunday morning services and many of our activities and events can be joined virtually via Zoom. Our services can also be viewed live, and archived, on our YouTube channel.
Accessing USNF news and our website
All newsletters, as well as the weekly Order of Meeting, are emailed to all members and friends who are on our mailing list. This allows individuals to use their own technology, such as text enlargement and screen readers, to access the materials. (If you aren't receiving these emails, join the mailing list.)
Our website has been designed with W3C accessibility standards in mind and is continually updated to improve web accessibility. Some of the features that we use to make the website accessible are including alt text on photos so that screen readers can read descriptions of the images, using headers in order (e.g. H1, H2, H3) as a way to create structural hierarchy on pages, avoiding the use of color and images (alone) to convey meaning (e.g. using text to say "stop" rather than using a graphic of a stop sign), and using highlighting on links while hovering in order to make it easier to see when they are selected.
