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 10th, 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 week, the GPA members continued teaching three kids: As usual, we first reviewed the skills that we taught in the past and made some corrections, to make sure that they were doing their moves properly. We first taught one skater how to do one-foot glides across the ice, by gliding on two feet first across the rink, and then on one foot while staying still. After he got the hang of those two actions, we let him slowly glide one-foot across the sides of the boards of the rink. We taught the second skater how to spin faster by holding their arms tight. We taught the third skater how to jump higher by bending their legs more before taking off. The kids have made lots of improvement with their skating skills.
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 was a very fun and unique experience, and the volunteers learned many beneficial skills while volunteering. This is a weekly event until around March.
