More than 2,200 athletes are competing this weekend in the Special Olympics Connecticut Unified Sports Holiday Classic.
The annual event, which NBC Connecticut is proud to sponsor, kicked off on Saturday morning in East Haven at AMF Circle Lanes, where athletes competed in bowling, one of the four events.
“They always give their best,” volunteer Tom Summers said. “Whether they’re having a bad day or not, they always give us their very best.”
Summers has been working with Special Olympics for almost 20 years.
“This has brought to me just so much joy and being around these athletes, old, young, it really doesn’t matter. They just seeing the fun and watching them grow and develop, it’s worked out really great.”
The athletes, along with their unified partners, who are teammates with and without intellectual disabilities, are also participating in basketball, volleyball and powerlifting.
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“We have over 700 volunteers who escort our volunteers and handout the medals and have an amazing, rewarding experience, so a lot goes into it and a lot of people with big hearts coming together to make it happen,” Director of Communications and Marketing Debbie Horne said.
Horne said for their athletes Special Olympics is a home away from home.
“The beautiful thing about Special Olympics it really does become something they can do for decades. It becomes part of their life. Their friends become their family.”
For this weekend’s schedule of events, click here.
