Red, white and blue with large amounts of spirit was found inside the halls of Belvedere Elementary school on April 14. Special Olympics athletes from Belvedere, Mossy Creek and North Augusta elementary schools came together for a day of celebration and athletic activities.
“Our students work really hard all year and this is a day that we get to celebrate them and their achievements, but it’s also a day that they get to have fun. They get to take a break from work, do some fun activities, and a lot of our students have been practicing for these events and they get to have these competitions and really just enjoy spending some time with each other,” Beth Taylor, interim director of special programs for Aiken County Public Schools said. “It’s also an opportunity for them to get to meet students from other schools that they may not typically get to spend some time with.”
A larger scale annual Special Olympics event for students within Aiken, Edgefield and Saluda counties is usually held at Midland Valley in mid-April and was canceled earlier in the week due to impending weather.
Belvedere Principal Allyson Long, Reading Specialist Teacher Heather Schuler and other teachers came together to make something work last minute with a variety of athletic events, an opening ceremony and silent parade complete with handmade signs.
“As soon as we got that email, we were like, ‘OK what can we do?,’ and we jumped right on it,” Schuler said.
She said it means the world to her to see the support from the administration, teachers and students.
“Even though we had a hiccup and we couldn’t do it like we normally do it, we can still participate, and the kids are going to remember this and it is going to be a memory that they are going to have forever, and a memory all of us at Belvedere are going to have forever as well,” she said.
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