Volunteers are the backbone of Special Olympics Pennsylvania (SOPA). Without our volunteers, we’d never be able to provide competition, leadership, health and so many other opportunities to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities throughout Pennsylvania.
Congratulations to Jolessa Paterniti, Erie, for being named our Volunteer of the Month for December 2023!
Young Athletes is an innovative sports play program for children with and without intellectual disabilities age 2-to-7. The program includes active games, songs, and other play activities that help children develop motor, social and cognitive skills. Get to know about Jolessa’s Young Athletes journey and why she brought it to Erie area. Congratulations on this outstanding accomplishment, Jolessa!
First and foremost, I’m a mom to two kiddos. I have a 12-year-old daughter and a 5-year-old son, and they are both on the spectrum. My son is nonverbal, and he is level three, whereas my daughter just meets the criteria. I was born and raised in Erie… This past summer, I started asking around if there were any programs or sports that my son could join that were inclusive and found that [Erie] kind of lacked that.
So, I reached out to a friend of mine, Nikki Delsandro, who’s been with SOPA for 20 years now. She gave me some information on Young Athletes, and I let it go for a while. We connected once more, we spoke and she sent me the information again! She kept saying, ‘You NEED to do it!’ Another month rolled by, and she sent it to me for a third time, so I took the time to finally send all my information back into SOPA!
It took a lot of self-initiation but the team in the [Northwest Region] has been great. The community has really taken on this new program and has welcomed it. We get a lot of kids from the northeast, which is on the New York state line… But we have kids from all over the Erie area participating.
What really inspired me to kickstart Young Athletes was really my son, honestly. I can’t tell you how many different activities my daughter has gone through. I think I’ve paid for just about everything under the sun from horse riding lessons, dance, soccer, baseball, swimming, music lessons… She’s pretty much done everything. But for my son, I was disheartened. I was disheartened that there wasn’t just more than baseball.
I wanted him and kids like him to have the opportunity to just engage in sports. We don’t focus on any one sport. We focus on a lot of different play activities because we are a play program. I have introduced soccer, basketball and sports like that to the kids because every kid should get to play. If they want to play, then come on out because every kid should have the opportunity to. If I have to do it so that they do, then let’s do it.
Living in Erie City, we come across a lower income majority with the city residents. That’s another reason why I started Young Athletes. I wanted to make sure something free was offered. Special Olympics Pennsylvania’s community is great. We had our Polar Plunge recently and it was my first year doing it. Starting the Young Athletes program in the summer was my first time ever being involved with Special Olympics, and now I’m never going to stop.
It’s definitely a team effort. Sometimes I think I get a little too big for my pants and my team reels me in because I have such big aspirations for Young Athletes. As we go along, I would love to introduce clinics and smaller programming where we’re focusing on one sport. We would always keep the regular programming, but the clinics would be something additional. I’m learning as I go along.
Because of Young Athletes, we’ve been able to integrate children with and without intellectual disabilities… Running the summer programs and taking a step back was one of my [favorite memories]. We had a field filled with kids and volunteers. When I first started, I was super worried no one would come. But then to see the field full of kids reminded me that it wasn’t just my family that needed this.
My advice to SOPA volunteers and incoming volunteers is: Use the resources that SOPA provides to you. Having the resources helps me look back and adapt programs to the kids. Don’t be afraid to ask somebody to jump in and help!
The biggest thing is that this Young Athletes program is not just me. I might be the person and face in front of it, but I wouldn’t have been able to do this without the support from our region, the families and the kids.
