Shelby Hoover's Final Post

      Summit Leadership Park has been an exciting and educational experience for me this year. Though our community service project, Special Olympics-Young Athletes Program, I learned a lot about myself as a leader and accomplished a lot by giving back to the community. In the Young Athletes Program, we a handful of children by giving them experience in playing different sports such as baseball, soccer, basketball and more. I also learned more about planning an event of a larger scale. It takes a lot of prior planning, teamwork and patience. Ultimately, though, I formed relationships with the children that came to our program and with my fellow Summit Park team members.

        Summit Park has helped me realize exactly how I am a leader and what I look for in fellow leaders. It has also helped me by giving me further insight in working with a team. It at times was be difficult to find times when everyone is available with the busy schedules that we all had and other unforeseen circumstances but we found ways to work around this and produce a project that we can be happy with. I have grown as a leader and I feel more confident in my role as part of a team, as am individually and in the community.

           -Shelby Hoover

Emily Stebbins Final Post

        Although everything did not go according to plan this year, our Summit Group still accomplished what we initially set out to do. We only reached a few children, but that is better than none. I am happy with the bonds we formed with the children and what we learned about working with special needs children.

       This semester, we only help two Young Athletes Programs. This was due to some scheduling difficulties with our community sponsor. Although we would have loved to hold four to eight YAP’s, two is better than none. We got to work with a child that we saw last semester as well. It was nice to have a returning child to help him further.

       Overall, our group learned a lot from living in Summit. We learned about how to work in a group. We all realized that there are some aspects of team work that we are good at and other areas that we need to work on. As a whole, our group worked very well together which made everything much easier. Summit was a good experience that we all learned from.

        For me, specifically, I learned that I need to work on communication with my other group members. I have no problem taking the initiative to get things done. But, I often times forget to keep my group members up to date on the progress that we are making. This is something that I am confident that I can work on to improve. 

               -Emily Stebbins

Positivity in the Community

Our community partner was the Special Olympics of Missouri. Even more specifically, we focused on the Young Athletes Program which was for special needs children from ages 3 to 8. Our project wasn’t focused on an “issue” in the community. Rather, the Special Olympics are about giving opportunities and chances to those who might not normally receive those, specifically with sports.

One of the biggest reasons that I really loved working with the Special Olympics was due to their positive impact in the community.

Personally, this has really opened my eyes and helped me learn to interact and teach students with special needs. As a future educator, this is a necessary skill. I’m glad that I will have an opportunity to work with these types of students before I start teaching.

It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself. -Ralph Waldo Emerson

The past few months of dedication to Young Athletes Program, Special Olympics has taught me a lot of things. I have learnt that while giving something, you are not losing anything. In fact, the joy that you see in the other person’s face after you help them is much more valuable than the help you render.

The service project really opened my eyes to the many different opportunities to help, here in Springfield. The fact that there are so many organizations, willing to help anybody makes me very proud of humanity. It is a valuable piece of my experience here in the United States that I am taking back home, to my country. Until my graduation, I wish to continue to volunteer when ever possible, especially in the field of special Olympic since I have picked up skills from the service project and also from my past volunteer experience at a vocational institute for the intellectually challenged in 2011. The skills will make it easier and give me more confidence to deal with mentally/physically challenged people.

How Volunteering Lead to More Volunteering

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.

Special Olympics Impacts Future Teacher

                Being a part of an organization like the Special Olympics has taught me a lot about individuals with Special Needs. A program like the Special Olympics gives children and adults the experiences they should be given. Before becoming involved with the Special Olympics, I was not aware of the wonderful organizations in the area devoted to providing support, encouragement and experiences to individuals with Special Needs. After helping with the Special Olympics only a few times, I quickly realized how necessary these organizations are to the community. The Special Olympics puts focus on promoting friendships within families, between other Special Olympics athletes and the community. Particularly, for our project, we helped in the Young Athletes Program for children ages three to nine. This gives younger children the chance to become involved in the Special Olympics at a young age and gives them the opportunity to discover different sports and develop physical fitness before they enter the Special Olympics at the age of 12. The Young Athletes Program is one of the only programs specifically for children of this age group and gives younger children the opportunity to have experiences that they might not otherwise have had before the Special Olympics.

                Working with the Special Olympics has impacted me personally on many levels. The Special Olympics has connected me and given me experiences in working with children with Special Needs. As a future teacher, this will be helpful in the classroom and will allow me to enhance the personal bonds I make with my students.  As a community, the Special Olympics’ encourages everyone to be involved and help those around them and to create friendships, share your gifts and share your skills with others.