“Treat them as your equal, treat them as your best friend, treat them as you would anyone else,” says Mrs. Jane Whitley, Special Olympics Club moderator of those in our society with special needs or intellectual disabilities

The Special Olympics Club at Regis Jesuit has over three hundred members this year. The club meets every first and third Thursday in the Girls Division cafeteria, and the twelve leaders meet every second and third Thursday in the Boys Division. They have been rapidly growing over the past years.

“This is the first year we’ve been declared an official co-divisional club,” Whitley said. “Each had our own club, so when I started off we had abou twenty girls, but we always had some boys come to the different events over the years.”

Special Olympics reaches to over 75,000 people in Colorado by offering twenty-two sports. With the support of over 9,000 volunteers, they are able to offer over 100 events annually in Colorado. 47 percent of the people they serve are at or below the poverty line. While sports are the main focus, they also have youth and adult leadership programs, health and fitness education, and screenings have proved the success of these programs.

Mrs. Whitley says that she’s seen a major improvement in how we accept these people in our society.

“Back when I was growing up, they used to call them mindgloids, which was really gave them not much dignity and such forth. They would separate them in those days in keep them not part of the community, and keep them in homes,”she says. “Now in most schools you can find special needs kids in most school, they can find jobs. They used to only have jobs in a little warehouse, sheltered and so forth. I believe that we are becoming more accepting, but I always think there’s progress. ”

Whitley stresses that we need to stop using the word retarted, or the r-word, not only when we are referring to people with special needs, but in our every day lives.

“I know it’s just like ‘Oh that’s retarted’ even if you aren’t referring to a person it’s wrong,” she says, “Everything should be about loving and acceptance and that’s not showing either to the special needs person.” We need to be open to anybody and everybody in our community. We need to see them as kids that God has created out of love.”

In Special Olympics, the term “intellectual disabilities” is a synonym of mental retardation. Therefore, Special Olympics uses the definition of intellectual disabilities/mental retardation provided by the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations’ specialized agency for health.

The Special Olympics club puts on the Spread the Word Rally each year to help tell people not to use words that degrade people with special needs.

Whitely says that people with mental disabilities in school should have a fine mixture of classes with other people like themselves and with people without mental disabilities.

She says, “Some classes will just be too difficult for them. But I know that some kids in our Project Unify team, some have already graduated from high school, but others that are still in high school, they are in a mixture. They are in some classes where it really is a challenge, and like any student here, having a challenge is good because it helps you grow and so forth like they do.”

She also said that since she is not qualified to teach special ed, that she may not be the best person to answer that question.

Several boys were very influential in getting the boys involved with the program. The club started Project Unify two years ago, and will be going into their third year

“Ace Escobedo became one of the coaches and he’s a great leader,” Whitley said. “Word just got out about the different events and what Special Olympics is all about.”

She said the growth of the club is very good for the school. What’s more, she says it’s good for the soul.

“It makes you realize how blessed your life is working with Special Olympics and special needs kids. God’s love just continues to shine through you to other people.”