It’s official. As of last month, the Team River Runners chapter that helped to stage a Father’s Day Flotilla and a Blockade Race at the Town of Quantico last year has changed its name to the Belvoir-Quantico Team River Runner, and an expanded relationship with the town and the base that shares its name is planned for the near future.

The chapter started out associated with Fort Belvoir Community Hospital, but it has increasingly involved Marine Corps Base Quantico and the Town of Quantico.

"I myself and many others in our organization are Marines, and so we have an affinity for the Marine Corps," said chapter coordinator Sean McCarthy, adding that the town of Quantico has also been interested in hosting activities. About half the chapter’s leaders are former active duty Marines.

Team River Runners is a national nonprofit organization that started as a paddling club for wounded warriors. It now has about 50 chapters.

"The original focus was on wounded warriors, but as we’ve learned through the years, that really encompasses their families," McCarthy said. "For you to heal, it’s a whole lot better environment if your family is part of the process."

The Belvoir-Quantico chapter now works closely with the Fort Belvoir Exceptional Family Member Program and has just begun outreach to the Quantico EFMP. It is also now open to any active duty or veteran military members, their families and Department of Defense civilians.

Activities have also expanded beyond paddling to include waterskiing, snowboarding, fishing, biking, hunting, rock climbing and more. All are enabled by training and adaptive equipment.

The chapter holds weekly sessions at the indoor pool at Fort Belvoir. Each session includes training, practice and a game, usually kayak football, McCarthy said, noting that a tournament will be held in March. "It’s a ragtag game, but it’s a lot of fun."

The group has "mission-critical" status to ensure access to the facility, he said. "We operate year-round. We’re fortunate that we have a pool that’s available to us 52 weeks a year."

All facilities, equipment and training are free, although activities sometimes require traveling costs or entry fees the group can’t cover.

The chapter has access to two properties in Maryland for all sorts of outdoor activities, and it also coordinates activities with chapters in Virginia Beach, Charlottesville, Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Baltimore, Richmond and Shepherdstown, Pa. Leaders of all those chapters will hold a conference in the town of Quantico later this month.

The chapter plans to help again with the Father’s Day Flotilla and Blockade Race events this year and is also planning an "Operation Surf and Turf" that will include paddling from Leesylvania State Park to Quantico and touring the National Museum of the Marine Corps. A paddling excursion to the ship cemetery at Mallow’s Bay, across the Potomac River from the base.

"Quantico is one of our favorite places for paddling, actually," McCarthy said, noting that the area provides easy access to Leesylvania, Aquia Creek, Quantico Creek and Mallows Bay, as well as the Potomac River. "To us, [Quantico] is local and it’s a natural, and we already do a lot of our paddling down there."

The group also offers occasional special sessions, such as a recent lesson on rescue and safety techniques, and an upcoming session on CPR and first aid.

McCarthy said participants are as varied as an amputee, a girl with Down syndrome and a man who injured both of his shoulders. He’ll never paddle in whitewater, but with training and equipment, he’s able to navigate flat water. Many are not injured, some are civilians, and they are of all ages.

One of those civilians is Theresa Shields, therapeutic recreation specialist with Semper Fit Headquarters, who not only has been helping the chapter coordinate with base organizations, but, an avid kayaker, she has been paddling with the group, both at Quantico and Belvoir.

"I go because it’s therapeutic for me," she said. "It helps me with my stress level."

Shields said she has just started reaching out to families through the Quantico EFMP and to the 90 or so wounded, ill or injured Marines on base through the Wounded Warrior Regiment.

"The partnerships are still forming," she said. "They’re still fairly new."

Although the initial outreach is to the injured, ill and disabled, she said, the program will offer opportunities for many. "To me, anyone can benefit from it."