Service Center facilitates Special Olympics
Arm over arm, swimmers raced across the water in front of a cheering crowd in the HPER building Friday as they competed in the Special Olympics Swim Meet.
“Utah State puts on multiple events during the whole school year and all the teams from the North area of Utah all come and compete,” said Caroline Reale, Special Olympic Games director.
Reale said Special Olympic events at USU include swim meets, Nordic skiing, track and sometimes bowling.
“We have just three a year, so it’s usually one or two a semester. But the actual Special Olympic teams practice every Saturday,” she said.
Reale said the events are split up into either three or four divisions, and each division has a first, second and third place winner who receive gold, silver or bronze medals. Everyone receives a participation ribbon.
As director, Reale said her goal is to make sure the events are safe, the athletes have fun and there are enough volunteers in attendance. She said volunteers do everything from timing the races and cheering on the athletes, to distributing food and cleaning up — volunteers come for various reasons.
“Some of them are doing it for class volunteer hours that they need,” Reale said. “A lot of them are just coming out to support the cause.”
Service Vice President Maddie Busteed said the Special Olympics at USU is just one of the service organizations within the Val R. Christensen Service Center.
“It’s a really neat experience for college students to go out and support,” Busteed said, “even if they go just to cheer the athletes on, because those athletes love when they are in the swimming pool just racing and they have this loud cheering fan base.”
Assistant Director of the Service Center Shalee Cox said the Service Center has 20 service programs, including the Special Olympics, on campus. She said these programs provide services such as tutoring for elementary schools, helping people with special needs and promoting health issues.
Cox said the volunteers learn as they serve in these programs.
“They can learn and become better people,” Cox said. “They will be able to learn things serving others that they will be able to use for the rest of their lives.”
To spread center awareness, Cox said it does such events as the Day on the Quad and the Service Center Kickoff, in which students listen to a presentation about the center before going to the third floor of the TSC for free Aggie Ice Cream.
Busteed said there are several events coming up in October and November for students to volunteer. Cox said there is a complete events calendar at www.usu.edu/asusu/servicecenter.
“We do a Halloween carnival that we put on for children in the community,” Busteed said. “We charge a can of food and that goes to one of our programs, SNAC.”
Busteed said the center’s biggest event is in November when the center will bring a bus on campus for “Stuff a Bus.” Students are asked to donate non-perishable food items to the Cache Community Food Pantry and gifts for “Sub for Santa” by filling a bus with the donations.
Although the Service Center doesn’t have any drastic changes this year, Cox said, it is making small changes to help make the center more welcoming.
She said now there is someone in the Service Center during office hours ready to answer questions and help get students involved.
Busteed said there are other possible changes coming to the program. She said she is working with members of the International Student Council on developing a program to build friendships between students from different cultures.
Busted said there are several other program coordinators looking to join the Service Center.
“There’s not necessarily a set guideline of what you need to have to get into the service center,” Busteed said. “The only thing it means to be a program within the Service Center, you’re under the umbrella of the Val R. Christensen Service Center. Therefore you get funding from the student fees that is allotted just to the Service Center.”
Program leaders hoping to join the Service Center need to provide new service opportunities for students, Busteed said.
– chris.w.lee@aggiemail.usu.edu