In December 2021, 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 December 2nd, 2021, GPA members Vanessa Zhang, 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.
On 12/16, during the one hour period, resuming from last class, the GPA volunteers taught the same skaters from the last couple of weeks: As always, we quickly went over what was taught previously, which was how to skate alone and how to get up. We then moved on to more difficult moves, such as one foot glides (something we went over a little bit last class) and swizzles. Similar to last time, they let the skaters practice standing up on one foot without gliding across the ice so that they got the hang of the overall action. Then they progressed to doing one foot glides on the boards, holding one hand, and eventually trying to do the glide by themselves. They managed to glide for a few seconds before falling down, but quickly got back up again, thanks to the review at the start of the class. We also taught them a little bit of swizzles at the very end of the lesson as well, telling them how the exercise was supposed to work and also demonstrated it.
It was a very fun and unique experience, and the volunteers learned many beneficial skills while volunteering. This is a weekly event until around March.
