Best Buddies New Mexico (BBNM) will host a free and easily accessible Celebration Week from Sept. 28 to Oct. 2 in an endeavor to minimize the isolation facing individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD).
The event will consist of daily activities available on Zoom beginning at 7 p.m., ranging from a jobs social gathering to a multicultural celebration.
While registering for the week’s events is recommended — as doing so will enable participants to receive notifications of activities and a bingo card to win prizes — it won’t be mandatory, as interested parties can simply access a Zoom link on BBNM’s website and tune in at will throughout the week.
The opening and closing ceremonies will be livestreamed from BBNM’s YouTube channel.
According to Kathryn Schwaar, BBNM’s program manager for community engagement, Best Buddies usually attempts to hold two fundraising events a year from a national standpoint, with the most popular being the Friendship Walk for Inclusion in the spring.
Schwaar quickly realized that the fall fundraising event would have to be virtual and more engaging than ever, due in large part to the disproportionately negative effects of social distancing on individuals with IDD.
“When COVID hit, we had a brainstorming session about how we could still achieve the same results in this virtual time,” Schwaar said. “From the participants I have talked to and from what I’ve overheard, it has affected them emotionally and socially to not be able to do usual activities. They already have to deal with a social isolation barrier due to their disability, but this pandemic has been really devastating.”
According to a flyer sent out by BBNM advertising Celebration Week, “nearly 90% of our Best Buddies friendship program participants have been negatively affected (by social distancing). We’re rapidly adapting to keep people connected and serve our programs in new ways.”
The significance of Celebration Week is twofold: fundraising and forging connections. Schwaar said that the organization relies on donation funds to provide services such as traveling throughout New Mexico to spread Best Buddies’ message, paying staff members, hiring individuals to train and prepare members with IDD to thrive within the workforce and opening more chapters within New Mexico public schools. The fundraising goal currently set for the Celebration Week is $20,000.
However, Schwaar said that “while fundraising is important, what’s the most important thing is bringing people together, opening up perspectives and creating relationships.”
Nathan Reiman, BBNM director of state operations and programs, said he hopes Celebration Week will “get the word out that we’re here and dedicating ourselves to provide a top notch experience for the people who are taking part in the services we provide.”
Celebration Week will feature an ongoing bingo game, in which participants will be able to mark a bingo card per event they attend and win prizes based on the number of bingos they attain. There will also be bilingual bingo during Thursday’s multicultural night, which aims to introduce Spanish learning in an enjoyably interactive environment.
George Hedrick, a Best Buddies ambassador who has been involved in the organization for 10 years, said he is most looking forward to Celebration Week’s sports night, as his favorite sport is football.
“I am very active in the Special Olympics, so I really love sports,” Hedrick said fondly.
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Celebration Week is also a culmination of ongoing virtual events that Best Buddies has been putting on since the start of quarantine, including trivia nights and Netflix watch parties.
“In the past, we’ve had some great in-person events, but what’s cool about virtual events is seeing the community come together,” Reiman said. “We’re collaborating with other agencies, such as Special Olympics, and I’m looking forward to continuing this neat cooperation in a post-COVID world eventually.”
Hedrick said his favorite virtual activity so far was the beach bash bingo night several weeks ago, where he won prizes such as a cup decorated with pineapples and some hand sanitizer.
Hedrick fosters a plethora of positive memories associated with the organization — he served as a Best Buddies director in high school, and won the Best Buddies New Mexico: Spirit of Inclusion award a few years ago. He still keeps in touch with his buddies from high school and even attended one’s wedding.
“Before Best Buddies, George had never been invited to anyone’s home, not even for a birthday party or a playdate,” Hedrick’s mother, Catherine Robinson, said. “But suddenly, when he joined Best Buddies, he had a social life. It changed his life, and it changed our family’s life.”
Schwaar said that, while Celebration Week will be an instrument of Best Buddies’s main message of inclusion, she hopes its effects will continue long after the event itself.
“We would love for this week to be a ripple effect and for people to be more aware of their peers with IDD and more aware of inclusion,” Schwaar said. “We’re hoping that Celebration Week is not the only time that people are thinking of inclusion.”
Beatrice Nisoli is a senior reporter at the Daily Lobo. She can be contacted at culture@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @BeatriceNisoli
