3 minute read
July 2022 Special Needs Living Akron/Canton
Community Events
STARK COUNTY EXCEPTIONAL OLYMPICS
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Hanging out with the Northwest Local Schools Buddy Club
Photos by Malcolm Porter
Q&A with Alicia Manning, Director of Northwest Local Schools Buddy Club
Question: Describe your job/position. Answer: I teach a variety of classes at Northwest High School (Canal Fulton). I teach sports medicine, college success skills, basketball and fitness, team sports, and physical education. Additionally, I am one of the directors of a club we started called Buddy Club. The mission of the club is to build relationships with general education students and our intensive needs unit students.
Q: Describe your students’ excitement prior to the Exceptional Olympics event. A: A few have attended this event in years past and couldn’t wait to come back! For our first-year attendees, we have been talking to them about this event for months! Every school day, our students attend a physical education class that plays most of the events throughout the year. They have been incredibly excited to attend the event and show off their skills!
Q: Describe your students’ excitement during the Exceptional Olympics event. A: The students were grinning from ear to ear from the moment they got on the bus until we returned to school. Their faces just lit up when being recognized during the opening ceremonies. During the events, they did amazing! They were just having the time of their lives laughing, smiling, and playing.
Q: Describe your thoughts on why an event like the Exceptional Olympics is so beneficial to the special needs community. A: Exceptional Olympics is beneficial to our special needs community because it showcases that sports can be a way of bringing kids with all abilities together. The kids get to meet other students and see other kids that are just like them, scoring a goal, hitting a whiffle ball, bowling, throwing a football, and much more. Aside from the students, parents, teachers, administrators, and other caregivers were able to feel supported and “seen.” I have always had the goal of trying to create moments for our special needs students where they can feel like any other kid, and this event fulfills that goal. It’s truly an incredible event, and I already can’t wait to come back next year!
Q: Tell us your favorite moment of this Exceptional Olympics event. A: It is pretty hard to choose just one, but I would say when some of the whiffle ball volunteers were fielding the balls and kids were just crushing the ball way over their heads! I felt like I was watching the homerun derby!
