Community

Service Hannah Lunden

In February of 2018 I decided to reach out to Brookings Special Olympics. My reason for
reaching out was because I needed to log volunteer hours for a class I had at the time. What a
blessing that class was because I was exposed to such a great opportunity!
For the last year and a half, I have been a volunteer coach for the Brookings Special
Olympics team. It has been a blast getting to know the athletes, their families and other
coaches along the way. To be honest, I never thought that I would still be helping with Special
Olympics and almost 2 years later, I still am. I had planned on just volunteering for that class
and moving on. But I fell in love with the kids, so I could not say goodbye.
My duties as a volunteer coach have been helping with practices, registering athletes for
competitions, and chaperoning and coaching tournaments. In Brookings, we have softball,
bocce, track, swimming, basketball, and bowling offered for athletes to participate in. Every
Monday and Thursday nights we have practice from about 5:30-7 pm. The times vary
depending on what season we are in. For every sport except Bocce there is an area competition
and a state tournament. Bocce just has a state tournament.
Special Olympics has helped me grow as an individual and a future educator in many
ways. I have been put in situations of handling many different attitudes. Somedays athletes will
show up ready for practice, excited to be there and play, and then half way through the
practice they are refusing to continue. Learning how to deal with these attitudes has definitely
been an experience. I have been fortunate to work with some great people that are
phenomenal at helping with kids with disabilities get through these situations. I have also had
instances between athletes on the same team that argue over who is up to bat next at softball
practice. Sometimes it is hard for them to understand or remember the batting order or other
rules of the game. I have learned that it is important to have lots of patience and that
sometimes you just have to explain why they can’t be up next and they will usually understand.
Above I touched on different behaviors that I have seen at practices or games and how I
have learned from those. Along with those behaviors, I have also learned a lot about modifying
activities for students that are not able to do certain things. An example of this is, in softball
some athletes are not strong enough to throw a ball from 3rd base to 1st base over hand. So
instead we have them roll the ball on the ground using an underhand throw.
One thing that I have learned from these kids is how important the little things can be.
They are almost always (they have their days, like everyone else) happy and positive. They
enjoy playing any sport they can and being around each other. At the state softball tournament,
last year one of our athletes received the Spirit Award. He was so excited. He ran up to the
stage, head high and received his award. He made his way back to our table and then started
crying because he was so happy and proud. It is the little things. He had just won a Spirit Award
but for him it was like winning a gold medal at the Olympics in Rio.
I have without a doubt enjoyed my time volunteering with Brookings Special Olympics. I
truly believe that it has helped me grow as a future educator and has taught me many things
along the way. I look forward to continuing my time as a volunteer coach with this organization.