North Carolina State University Athletics
Wolfpack Community Outreach with Special Olympic Athletes
2/6/2007 12:00:00 AM | Women's Tennis
Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “The purpose of life, after all, is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experiences”. Our team wholeheartedly believes in Roosevelt’s statement as we try to keep ourselves dynamic through community service opportunities. Over the past four years, it has been an honor to say that we have built a strong and active relationship with one specific group of athletes, the Special Olympic athletes of Wake County.
Our relationship is growing stronger still with each event that we host with this foundation as we assume the roles of coaches, cheerers, mentors and leaders in game-playing events, training sessions, and competitions both on campus and in local cities around North Carolina.
Traditionally, our team engages with these athletes through tennis-based activities since every fall they prepare for the North Carolina State Games competition, but this invitation sent out on January 30 of the new year, required no racquets at all. Now that their competitive season is at rest, we wanted to broaden our experiences with them through an arts and crafts day at the J.W. Isenhour tennis center.
We had two projects that we were working on: a banner, made up for individual sheets of paper, and a tablecloth. The sheets of paper were designed to teach them the importance of “teamwork”. All of the sheets, when taped together, formed a banner. However, when pulled apart, each piece of paper would have an individual identity and role. Each piece of paper designed by either a Special Olympic athlete or Wolfpack member symbolized one person in a group. Our goal was to teach them the importance of each individual on a team; everyone’s originality, voice, action, and uniqueness is needed to make the team complete.
The second activity was the decoration of a tablecloth, which would go over a table in the lounge in the tennis facility. It was decorated with encouraging words for both the Wolfpack and for the Special Olympic athletes as well as pictures drawn of tennis balls, tennis courts, wolves, and other personal creations. The tablecloth was complete after all of the signatures of the participants for the day were found somewhere on it.
The tablecloth can be currently found lying underneath another mark of our community involvement within the lounge, a Ronald McDonald Foundation House. This hand-made Ronald McDonald House was built by the Wolfpack family as a place to collect pop-tops tabs removed from tennis ball cans. When the house gets full, the aluminum tabs are delivered to the Foundation where they are exchanged for money to aid its inhabitants and their families.
The Sisterhood of the Pack displays the table cloth and the Ronald McDonald House everyday. It serves as a reminder of the great need for continued community involvement and our desire to help others as a team to reach out to the community.
Check out the photo album from the event.
