Special Olympics Connecticut hosted a golf event on Sunday, Sept. 15 as part of its Unified Sports Fall Festival at the Sleeping Giant Golf Course.
The global organization holds athletic training and Olympic-style sporting competitions annually for children and adults with intellectual disabilities. Special Olympics has local programs spanning all eight counties in Connecticut.
Special Olympics offers a multitude of involvement opportunities for the community, including becoming an athlete, athlete’s partner, coach, volunteer, sponsor, or starting a fundraiser. Residents can come together and create lasting memories while playing various sports — from aquatics to snowshoeing.
“I really feel like it’s a privilege to work for Special Olympics because you get to meet the most amazing people from the athletes themselves who just triumph every day and just work so hard and just have the best outlook and personality and just have great character,” said Debbie Horne, senior director of marketing and communications for Special Olympics Connecticut.
“We have young athletes up to athletes in their 70’s … and just to see them come back year after year and the confidence they gain and the friendships that they make and just how they improve in their sports and try different sports every year, I think it’s really an amazing thing to be a part of.”
Horne, who has been a part of the organization for over 18 years, has had the opportunity to see the athletes grow in all aspects of life.
Special Olympics was founded in 1968 after social activist Eunice Kennedy Shriver and the Kennedy Foundation promoted the creation of camps where people could be recognized for their physical achievements, leading to the creation of the organization.
Special Olympics Connecticut has contributed to significant milestones for the organization. It sent three athletes to the first Summer Games in 1968. The University of Connecticut hosted the first Connecticut Summer Games in 1969, with over 800 participants. Special Olympics Connecticut hosted the first Winter Games in 1977 at the Powder Ridge Ski Area and the ninth Summer Games in New Haven in 1995.
The organization also offers Special Olympics Unified Sports, bringing children and adults with and without intellectual disabilities together on the same team.
“(Special Olympics) brings our friends together that we only see during competitions like this,” said Mike Hedrick, an athlete for Special Olympics Trumbull. “It brings the whole community together as one.”
Hedrick, who has been a Special Olympics athlete for 30 years, has won 19 gold medals in golf.
“Considering I just won my 19th (gold medal) … for me, Special Olympics is my life. Without it, I honestly don’t even know what my life would be,” Hedrick said.
Special Olympics offers a sense of belonging for children and adults with disabilities, where their talents and abilities are recognized. Athletes not only socialize through sports but are reassured that their best is good enough in life.
“I think for the community, they really benefit because they are part of just the joy of everything that goes on and to kind of be a part of somebody else’s life and help them achieve something,” Horne said. “I think it’s really inspirational to everybody who sees it, you know, just the way they work really hard and really show the best versions of themselves that they can.”
Special Olympics Connecticut will host two more events in Ocean House, Rhode Island, featuring croquet only on Sept. 28 and Sept. 29.