Special Olympics BC Revelstoke rocks the house

By Courtney Kaler, Special Olympics BC–Revelstoke

Special Olympics BC–Revelstoke started curling last season during the month of March 2017 when they hosted a one-day drop in session to see how many athletes would attend.

The goal was to see if there would be enough interest to run a full 12-week program. When Aleesha Kaler was asked what she thought about trying curling for the first time, her response was “Again!”

We had three athletes attend the drop in session last March and they had an absolute blast. “I love curling!” said Leroy Bridge. When the session came to an end after one hour, the athletes didn’t want to stop.

We asked the Revelstoke Curling Club if we could add another session and they welcomed us back with open arms. After curling turned out to be such a popular sport with three athletes, we had our monthly board meeting in April where we all voted unanimously to run a full 12-week program next season. “Curling is so much fun and it’s all about teamwork and being positive,” said Travis Kehler.

We attended mass registration at the Revelstoke Community Centre in September with the hopes of having at least a few more athletes sign up to try curling. We had four athletes sign up that evening.

Between September and October, we were hearing a lot of buzz and excitement from the athletes about getting started. When we began our program on October 29, we had five athletes attend!

By our third session, we had picked up a sixth athlete. This is what happens when our athletes become excited about a sport and share their excitement with their peers. Now here we are in December, and Special Olympics BC–Revelstoke is alive and well.

“We’ve had great attendance and we are seeing big improvements so everything is going very well,” said curling coach Jenn Ryan. We have had seven sessions now and our athletes have become very excited and are looking forward to playing games against other teams one day.

“I don’t want curling to end,” said Terina Sessa. “I don’t even want to take a break for Christmas.”

Sports are extremely important to our athletes and we are very fortunate to live in such an amazing community full of caring and giving individuals, organizations and businesses such as School District #19, the Revelstoke Aquatic Centre and the Revelstoke Curling Club.

Our SOBC mission states that: “Special Olympics BC is dedicated to enriching the lives of individuals with intellectual disabilities through sport.” This would not be possible without these individuals, organizations and businesses, as well as the amazing volunteers such as our board of directors and coaches that go above and beyond to make a lasting impression in our athletes lives.

As Allan Clark loves to say, “HURRY HARD!”