The13th annual Dorintosh I Can Games, June 16.
Students with special needs along with some of their educational assistants, teachers and parents attended. They came from the far north of the province to the most southern part of the Northwest School Division.
Special needs students played bean bag toss, wheelchair relay, newspaper basketball, duck hunt, reach for the sky, boot fling, scooter board hockey, clown bean bag toss, slalom run, toilet paper toss, obstacle course, bubble blowing, ping pong racing They ate: hotdogs, watermelon, ice cream Most of all, they laughed and played at a rate that was all their own.
Do you remember your sense of pride when you completed an activity you were good at? Spectators saw that pride, the joy of achievement and the sense of confidence in every one of the students. Eyes could often not hold back the tears.
You see, these students are not the only ones who benefit from these games. Every adult in attendance experienced their excitement of running the race or sinking the duck and getting the ribbon. The I Can Games are not just about training for sports, they are training for life.
It often did not matter if the ribbon said "first," "second" or "third." Sometimes it was just about collecting the brown ones or having every grass stain covered on their t-shirts. For the students these games are a payback for all the times they do not win, because they are not the fastest or the strongest.
For the director, teachers, parents, school secretaries, board of education, educational assistants and administration, these days allow all to see just how special these children really are.
