In March 2022, the Greater Princeton Branch of AYLUS Sports Committee continued its volunteer program with Special Olympics New Jersey (SONJ), which is an organization that strives to provide year-round athletic opportunities for children and adults with disabilities.
During the winter, SONJ provides sports such as ice skating for individuals. On March 17th, for 2 hours, GPA members Vanessa Zhang, Gloria Wang, Youyi Peng, and their friends volunteered at the Mercer County Skating Center to help the Mercer County Special Olympics group with aiding skaters around the ice during their practice.
This is the last week in this season to teach ice skating for the New Jersey Special Olympics. Gloria Wang and I (Vanessa Zhang) worked with three kids. We reviewed all the skills that we taught in the past several weeks and made some corrections. We taught them different ways to continue skating on their own on ice and off ice and left our contact information for them to reach us for help if they need.
By teaching the skaters with special needs, we have been improving our communication skills – we learned how to be more patient with them and more aware of their emotions and feelings by watching their actions and behaviors. We have been learning to express ourselves using vocal language as well as our body gestures. It is a great pleasure to watch them making progress on skating. One of the skaters gave me a thank-you-note to express his appreciation for my teaching. We will come back to volunteer next season.
