On April 10th, Presbyterian College had the honor to host the Special Olympics Area 5, organized by the Student Volunteer Services (SVS). The goal of the event is to provide a variety of Olympic-type sports for children and adults with intellectual disabilities. The events included 400mt, 100mt, and 50mt run and walk, long jump, among others. The Area 5 Special Olympics serves the areas of Abbeville, Greenwood, Laurens, McCormick, and Newberry. Presbyterian students participated in the planning of the event, set up, record keeping, medal giving, assistance during the games, and clean-up.
Lyle Jones, Co-Director of Presbyterian College Student Volunteer Services (SVS) shared the following with the BlueStocking Staff:
“The planning for the event took a lot of hours. In the day leading up to it, I probably spent about 7 hours planning and I didn’t even stay up with everybody. On the morning of the event, I got up at 5:30 AM to start preparing. And that’s not counting the weeks of preparation we had to do before that to make sure everybody could be there.
“I think we had between 12 to 15 schools participating. And counting all the volunteers, athletes, faculty, students, roughly 400 people. I don’t have the exact number of volunteers but just PC undergrad students were a little over 50. If you factor in PC undergrad students, Occupational Therapy students, and faculty members, we probably had around 100 to 125 volunteers. Pretty good turnout, and we needed all the volunteers we could get for such a massive event.
“I love service. That’s why I’m the Co-director of SVS. I love participating in the community, helping and making other people happy. And for me, just getting to go to an event where I get to see all these people having a good time and knowing that it was something that I did, something that I set up, that’s a feeling of joy that I don’t get anywhere else. So that is why I do it.”
About the importance of the event and reasons to help, volunteers shared the following:
“I joined the Special Olympics because I was able to do it last year and I loved it. I didn’t want to miss out on it because it just brings me so much joy. I like helping and giving back to the community who have seen me growing up,” said Cecilia Perez, a junior majoring in Spanish with a minor in art focused on ceramics.
“I think it’s a great way for us to give back to the community. I love it so much. This is my first year doing it and I will be doing it again. And just like we are a service campus, I think it’s a great way to meet new people and give back to the community. I think it’s really fun,” said Emma Beheler, a freshman concentrated on pharmacy.