The Mission Statement of the Special Olympics is:
“The mission of Special Olympics is to provide year-round sports training and athletic competition in a variety of Olympic-type sports for children and adults with intellectual disabilities, giving them continuing opportunities to develop physical fitness, demonstrate courage, experience joy and participate in a sharing of gifts, skills and friendship with their families, other Special Olympics athletes and the community. “(Taken from Special Olympics Website)
The mission of the Special Olympics is a great one that we really wanted to base our summit project on. Instead of using the idea of trying to help out an event that was already in place, we as a group thought it would be even better if we were able to set up an event here at Drury that would be geared towards the younger kids in the Special Olympics. We thought that this would make more of an impact considering that Springfield doesn’t have a lot of programs specifically for special needs children in this age group.
We ran into a lot of troubles along the way, but I still feel like we made a difference. With the kids we got we were able to see improvement in them by the end of the night. However, I would have to say that the biggest difference I see is in our summit group. We all were able to learn something from this experience, if not just the fact that organizing an event is not as easy as we thought it would be. I am from St. Louis, and being from St. Louis I started off having the thought that when it comes to volunteering there are so many other people in the city that none of those volunteer groups need any help from me. I know it’s a silly thought, but I just figured I wouldn’t know how to help them out. Just by looking at our experience down here with trying to organize an event shows me how difficult and frustrating it can be at times. So, because of my experience here in Springfield I plan on trying to volunteer while at home a lot more.
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