 Special Olympics Alaska and East Anchorage High School have enjoyed a productive, innovative, and mutually beneficial informal partnership for eight years. Special Olympics Alaska initiated the partnership to get high school students more involved with Special Olympics, and to stress the importance of accepting others. The partnership exceeded its original vision, and has also evolved into an East High institution.
Thanks to the partnership, East High’s Partners Club receives exceptional support. The East High Partners Club brings students of various abilities together on a weekly basis, and promotes positive relationships between mainstream students and those with intellectual disabilities. Special Olympics Alaska supports a myriad of activities for the club, including bowling, floor hockey, track, and weekly ski and snowboarding trips to Hilltop. The students also attend dances, movies, plays, and pizza parties together. Partners Clubs throughout the district participate in an annual Halloween on Ice event. All activities are funded by proceeds from Special Olympics Alaska and the Partners Club coffee shop.
The 52 students in East High’s Partners Club promote awareness of Special Olympics Alaska’s mission and activities in a variety of ways. From their daily interactions with East’s large staff and student body (comprising nearly 2500 people) who visit the Partners Club coffee shop to student assemblies showcasing Special Olympics Alaska athletes, East students work to break stereotypes and personalize the face of Special Olympics Alaska. In so doing, they make permanent contributions to the Anchorage community by forever changing preconceived notions.
As Jean Brown, the Partners Club co-sponsor observed, “We both understand the need for each other.” East High provides volunteers to Special Olympics Alaska, and in doing so they create lifelong supporters. The partnership helps to make volunteerism a way of life in an enjoyable and memorable way. As one student enthusiastically noted, “Special Olympics Alaska has played a vital role in unifying students with and without intellectual disabilities together as a group of students as well as a close knit group of friends.” |
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East High students at a Special Olympics Alaska event (from left to right): Jacob Kerr, Eva Cress, Samantha McEwen,
Daniel Fink. |
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