The third annual Special Olympics is being held on Friday, Dec. 13th. It is an event made to promote inclusion for all students, mixing general and special education students into teams to play basketball together. 

“We have a lot of students in the school that suffer from autism or certain mental disabilities which can make it a little bit harder to function,” senior Haley Tanis said. “We found that sometimes these students can be pushed aside in our school and in our school districts. So that’s why we created this event to promote general inclusion with everyone in our school.”

With each event, the student participation grows. More and more of the student body wants to participate.

“When I started sophomore year we had 60 people participate in the first event, and then my junior year we had around 100,” Tanis said. “This year we have close to 180 and upwards of 190.”

With an event this large, lots of preparation and organization is involved. Haley Tanis is on the executive board for the Student Leadership class. 

“It’s completely free to every student that participates but we provide shirts and food.” Tanis said. “We had to fund raise $3,000 this year for equipment that’s one of the biggest parts that goes through the summer. I was applying for grants trying to reach out to local businesses to get grants from them to fund raise for it.”

 https://www.specialolympics.org/