In February 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 February 3rd, 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 we worked with two kids. At the very beginning we talked a little bit about the Beijing Winter Olympics, trying to motivate them more to learn and practice skating. As usual, we first went over the skills that the kids learned last week, and made some corrections, to make sure that they were doing their moves properly. We then moved onto new skating skills such as forward and backward crossovers, making lots of improvement with the exercise motions. We also started to teach them turns and spins, and we ended with practicing the turn motion on the boards and stretching their legs.
By teaching the skaters we also improved our communication skills – we learned how to be more patient with the skaters and more aware of their actions and words, taking them into account when giving out corrections, along with learning how to understand a person’s emotions and feelings as they might not be capable of expressing them as well as others.
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.
