Spotlight on Student Organizations: Special Olympics Club
When Kayla Simone ’24 arrived on campus in the autumn of 2020, she immediately jumped into action. A member of the Unified Basketball team in her hometown, Kayla wanted to bring the same opportunity to the Cornell campus.
Unified Sports are a program of the Special Olympics that brings together individuals with and without intellectual impairments and with similar skills and abilities onto the same team. A Special Olympics Unified Sports club had previously existed at Cornell but had fizzled over the years. To fill the need this left on campus, Kayla spent her first several weeks of the semester networking across campus to determine who she could partner with to revive the group and to learn what paperwork she needed to complete in order to start a club and begin recruiting members. Everything had to be done before ClubFest, one of the most effective member recruitment tools on campus. The final piece of the puzzle was to, in the three days remaining before ClubFest, and in partnership with her newfound co-founder, CJ Raban, write and file a club constitution. They were successful, recruiting 15 initial members. The organization currently numbers about 40 members.
The pandemic had impacted typical campus life which meant Kayla and CJ had to think creatively, hosting monthly events over Zoom, activities like Sports Jeopardy and Trashcan Free Throws. For Kayla, there was a silver lining to this approach. “We got to form a connection with the athletes. People kept coming back and we got to know them better than we would have had they come and just gotten onto the court. We participated in a national virtual college championship and Special Olympics clubs from around the nation competed against one another. We got to see what Special Olympics teams from around the world were doing, and we got to interact with them. Normally, that would not have happened,” Kayla says.
They also recruited an e-board to support the longevity of the organization. Zoe Lin ‘24, Vice President of the Special Olympics Club, says, “this is such a unique and special club, it’s not an opportunity you can find elsewhere.”
In fall 2021, the club was able to run bocce games in Stewart Park, and in the spring, bowling and basketball returned. “It’s such a rewarding experience. It makes me so happy to be there,” Kayla says. “There are a lot of clubs at Cornell. Many are hard to get into and so many have high stakes, are academic or rigorous, and that adds extra pressure onto your life. The Special Olympics Club is relaxing, rewarding, laid back. What people like about the club is that you can make of it what you put into it. Nothing is mandatory. It is fine to show up to practice when you can. It’s is so much fun. Especially this past season, it’s been strictly in person. It was so exciting to be in person.”
“The athletes show care for one another in a different way than we would with our peers. Their loving relationship with one another is so inspiring to learn form. When people say about Special Olympics that it is students helping the athletes, that’s not quite right. It is more like a two-way street. We both learn from each other,” Zoe says. “Yes, you are helping other people, but at the same time you are learning so much from them that you wouldn’t be able to learn elsewhere.”
Kayla and the e-board are preparing for the upcoming ClubFest, and the Special Olympics Club members are eager to get involved with bocce, basketball, and/or bowling Unified Sports again this year. Final decisions regarding club activities will be made as a unit following this year’s ClubFest, recruitment push, and onboarding of new members.
If you’re Interested in joining this club, or any of the other nearly 1,000 student organizations on Cornell’s campus, find them at ClubFest on Sunday, September 11.