Aim High

It was a perfect day for another opportunity to volunteer at the Special Olympics track and field event. Nice temperature, sunny skies and cool breeze...

Oh wait, the mini javelin throwers might have preferred NOT throwing into the wind of that nice cool breeze. No worries, they just rolled with the day and enjoyed the moment! It was fun to watch each athlete's style. Some walk up and throw. Others take their time and follow their well-practiced routine. Some are quite focused and stoic. Others are chatty and talk themselves through the moment. The coolest part is listening to them all congratulate each other on great throws, regardless of the distance! 

We were a small but mighty team of 5 volunteers (we joined up with a brother-sister duo), to facilitate about 10 heats of roughly 6 athletes each. Danielle and I were in charge of measuring and score keeping. (We apologize to any athletes in the first round of the first heat where we might have gotten the distance wrong, due to the fact that the metric numbers were worn off the mega tape measure...thankfully everyone gets a medal regardless.)

Jeff had the important job of identifying where the tip first hit the ground and then in charge of marking the spot, while Crew placed the end of the tape measure.

Good times for the athletes and the volunteers, but we'll leave the throwing to the trained athletes. And next time, we'll make sure we have a strong person in charge of staging the next heat, to keep things moving along, even if athletes are missing!

Not quite the same as the flame recently spotted in Paris, but what an amazing event and organization to support! The type of place where everyone is a winner.

Post event update: um, we forgot the sunscreen, so we're all now paying the price with the first sunburns of 2025! Danielle, I apologize now for the impact this will have on your skin in 30 years...🙈