BEST BUDDIESBest buddies is an
organization at the
school that
I am in. It is a lot of
fun and it
teaches you new things about other people. I geuss I should explain what
best buddies actually is, huh?
WHAT BEST BUDDIES IS ALL ABOUTBest buddies started as a small organization at a
college. It was set up to
help out
kids who were
mentally challenged, or were
mentally retarded. Basically, kids who are
mentally challenged have less
oppurtunities to do fun things. People who join best buddies are partnered up with a kid with mental retardation and we take them out to do fun things!
HOW I GOT INTERESTED WITH BEST BUDDIES It spread quickly moving on to
high schools, just like mine. So at the beginning of last
year I was just entering high
school. As a
freshman I decided that I would try to get myself to do new things and take a break from
sports. So best buddies appeared in a school
book and I read a little about it. I decided I would give it a try.
MY FIRST EXPERIENCES WITH BEST BUDDIESMy first day of best buddies was pretty fun because I knew some kids who were interested in doing it too. When the next meeting had come they had dropped out and I didn't really know anyone, but I decided to stick with it. I was partnered up with this kid named Tom. A
girl named Katie was also paired up with him to help me out. He was really
nice and wasn't really all that hard to understand or get through to
him. He did have a tendancy to
talk a lot though.
BEST BUDDIES ACTIVITIESDuring the year we called our buddy atleast two times a week and did an activity with them atleast once a
month. We then did a group thing once a month. A group thing is when
everyone in best buddies gets together and we do
something as a whole. We did this once a month. Some group things we did were:
-go to a high school
football game- go
bowling-have a
christmas party-have a semi-formal
dance-have a end of the
year cook-outSome of the one-on-one activities I did with Tom and Katie were:
-watch a movie
-go out to
eat-go out for
ice cream-go to the mall
-throw Tom a
birthday party
24 HOUR RELAYEvery year the
town has a 24 hour
relay. Best buddies organized a
team to support best buddies and I volunteered to join it. The 24 hour relay was a lot of fun and people from best buddies, like Tom, stopped by during the
day to see how the
runners were doing. Best buddies did very well and in a total we ran over 100 miles. We also decorated a
banner and won "Best Banner".
Best Buddies was fun and I can't wait to join in next
year.