Whenever Special Olympics athletes and Unified partners come together, the vibes radiate excitement and loud energy. It’s the quiet time of year on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus, but the presence of Special Olympics makes it lively, especially on the southeast side of campus near Gordon Dining & Event Center and Ogg Residence Hall. Approximately 200 youth participants, adult mentors, Honored Guests, sponsors, and Special Olympics staff converged on campus for the 2024 SONA National Leadership Event: To Inclusion and Beyond June 25-28. In a first-of-its-kind event, Unified leaders and U.S. Youth Ambassadors came together to learn ways to promote inclusion throughout their communities as they graduate high school or start the next journey in their lives.
The U.S. Youth Ambassadors are young leaders with and without intellectual disabilities who seek to make their communities more inclusive. They are advocates, and storytellers, and are examples of what and how inclusion should be showcased.
Over the span of a two-year term, U.S. Youth Ambassadors will learn leadership skills to advocate and share the importance of Special Olympics in their school communities and beyond. “The young people are taking us forward; they are the next generation to fill jobs; they are the next generation to set the pace and set the tone for what communities look like,” Lexxi O’Brien, the Manager of University Engagement at Unified Champion Schools, says about the importance of Youth Ambassadors, who played key roles in planning and running the event.
Just as the Youth Ambassadors lead by example both at home and in the larger Special Olympics movement, the host location serves as a model of inclusion and leadership on a college campus.
“The University of Wisconsin-Madison has Special Olympics Unified Champion Schools® programming, and for many reasons, they’ve been a really great partner of Special Olympics and have a really involved campus recreation department,” O’Brien says. “So, for all the participants here this week to experience a college campus, I hope for a lot of young people it gave them a taste of what it could be like to be on a college campus.”
It was the first time many attendees had the opportunity to stay in dorms, eat at the dining halls, and use the recreation centers on campus. It was a chance to get a small glimpse of what college life is like. At different periods of the week, many of the athletes mentioned things like, “I want to go to college,” or “something like this could be achievable for me.”
That broadening of horizons wasn’t limited to just the attendees.
Amanda Thwing is the Director of Conferences, Events and Desk Services at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and oversaw the organizational development of the event from the campus housing, dining, and space perspective. In a coincidence, Thwing’s son is a Special Olympics Wisconsin athlete and having that connection only made the job at hand more meaningful. “For me, it was exciting to see a different side of Special Olympics in places that maybe I can help encourage folks to get involved,” Thwing says about the role she plays in making this event happen. “One of the things I have been involved in is planning and meeting all of the North America staff has been exciting.”
On day one of the event, Ray Roberts, Senior Advisor, Urban Schools Development, stood center stage in the main conference room. With several participants spread out amongst tables, he couldn’t be missed, with his tall athletic frame.
Roberts delivered the opening keynote and talked about some of his experiences like playing for the Seattle Seahawks and how to be impactful following the event. Athletes, Unified partners, mentors, honored guests, and Special Olympics Program staff would learn a variety of leadership skills over the course of three days. It’s then their job to execute game plans on how to continue promoting inclusion throughout their lives and their communities.
“There’s something about Special Olympics, and a lot of people might not realize that because until you’re here and around the community, you won’t understand the energy that everyone has,” says honored guest, ESPN’s Skubie Mageza, who represented ESPN by presenting on the “One Giant Leap for Inclusion: How to Spread Inclusion in Your Career and Community outside of Special Olympics” panel.
Additional special guests included Valerie Williams, Director, Office of Special Education Programs, Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, and leaders from 17 partner organizations including KPMG and Bank of America.
Youth Ambassadors Rylynn Zanon and Thomas Blair have been friends since their freshman year of high school, attending Stillwater Area High School in Minnesota. Now entering their sophomore years of college, they are also entering year two of their Youth Ambassador term. “We really didn’t know each other back then [freshman year], but we got to know one another throughout the years, and we really found our friendship junior year,” Zanon says.
Blair says, “it’s not just sports, it’s a lifestyle.”
A lifestyle that requires some hard work along the way.
Both Zanon and Blair said they started to help plan and create a game plan for the National Leadership Event back in October 2023. After monthly calls and nine months of planning, the anticipation and seeing it all come together paid off. “We plan events and the work we put into it, now we get to see it actually pay off,” Zanon says is her favorite part.
In the end, each attendee took something different away from the event. They learned about education, how to be a coach, intramural sports on campuses, money habits, professional development, and more. But what stood out the most was the panel discussion on day one, “To Inclusive Higher Education and Beyond,” discussing different paths to higher education, like transitional programs, trade school opportunities, and more. Throughout the conference room eyeballs opened, chests perked up, and questions were being asked. A new perspective was being shared in a community often subject to the misconception that higher education isn’t attainable. The event was designed for Unified leaders and U.S. Youth Ambassadors to learn ways to still be inclusive in their communities as they get older. And they gained so much more than that. It may have been planned that way, or maybe it just happened to be what set the tone of the week by chance, but whatever it was, the message was sent and received by all in attendance.
