Students Travel For Best Buddies Leadership Conference

By Steve Bonanno

Equality and friendship are two values the International Organization Best Buddies strongly promotes. The organization does this by creating friendship and employment opportunities for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Best Buddies was founded by Anthony K. Shriver in 1989. Since it’s creation it has grown significantly, having almost 1,500 chapters, one of which is in Newtown. The Newtown chapter has 100 active members, one of which is rising Newtown High School junior, Charlotte Gray.

Charlotte said she joined the NHS Best Buddies program her freshman year because, “it was a club with a good message, that everyone is equal.”

Charlotte is entering her third year with the organization and will be acting chapter president at the beginning of the school year.

On July 20 Charlotte went to the 23rd Annual Best Buddies Leadership Conference in Indiana, along with NHS student Aidan Pelisson and NHS graduate Jen Brewer. The conference was conducted at Indiana University for four days.

 “Kids from all over the world came and talked about the club,” said Charlotte. “We had a whole day talking about the ‘R’ word and how we should not ever use it.”

Aidan said that the conference was his favorite Best Buddies activity that he has attended.

“I felt really accepted and I feel like I learned a lot while I was there,” said Aidan.

Aidan is a rising senior at NHS and has been a member of Best Buddies since he was a freshman.

 “I have Asperger’s so I eat lunch in the special education office because I don’t like the loud noises of the cafeteria. One day during lunch one of the teachers suggested the club to me,” said Aidan. “I thought it was a good idea because I heard that some of my other friends were doing it. When I showed up at the meeting I found there were a lot of people I knew there and we did a lot of fun things.”

The theme of this year’s Leadership Conference was “Inclusion Revolution.”

“The message was that we are the revolution,” said Charlotte. “We are one of the last civil rights movements. It’s a stereotype that people with intellectual or developmental disabilities aren’t smart and are not employable. I know kids with special needs going into multiple [advanced placement] classes, which is very humbling.”

Jen is currently a senior at Lesley University, Cambridge, Mass., and has been a member of Best Buddies since her freshman year of college. She explained that the conference was split up not just by state but by high school and college level chapters.

“It was good to network with people at other colleges so we can organize new events,” said Jen.” “Some schools have stronger chapters than others so it helps to talk to each other.”

Best Buddies has many other events organized by both the state and the individual chapters. The organization is nonprofit, so some of the events are fundraisers, while others are done simply for fun and to promote awareness.

One of the statewide events is a Friendship Walk. Some of the events that have been organized by just the Newtown chapter are “Bowl for the Buds,” a bowling fundraiser, and the Best Buddies Prom.

The Best Buddies Prom was held for the first time this past school year at NHS. It was a prom specifically for special education students and their friends.

“Some of the kids in the program can’t handle the loud noises of prom,” said Charlotte. “It was a great time where kids got to hang out with their buddy and have fun dancing.”

At Lesley University Jen said that they have monthly activities, such as apple picking or attending school sporting events. They also had a holiday party where they wrote thank you letters to soldiers.

Jen’s favorite activity is when they go as a group to the school cafeteria.

“I think it’s good because it helps make the whole student body aware,” said Jen. “We also had a ‘Spread the Word to End the Word’ event, where we walked around and explained to people why it’s not okay to use the ‘R’ word.”

Best Buddies is growing as an organization. According to its website two of the organization’s goals are to be a household name by 2020 and to put itself out of business.

“We want to make it so people automatically make friends with people who have disabilities,” said Aidan, “and don’t need an organization to tell them to.”