{"id":23450,"date":"2019-04-04T19:42:14","date_gmt":"2019-04-04T23:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=23450"},"modified":"2019-04-04T19:42:24","modified_gmt":"2019-04-04T23:42:24","slug":"aurora-marks-special-olympics-month-with-celebration-of-homegrown-heroes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/aurora-marks-special-olympics-month-with-celebration-of-homegrown-heroes\/","title":{"rendered":"Aurora marks Special Olympics Month with celebration of homegrown heroes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last Summer, Gary Freeman\nbrought home the hardware. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

An athlete with Special\nOlympics Aurora, Mr. Freeman represented Team Ontario at the Nationals in Nova\nScotia and found a comfortable place at the podium, bringing two of three\nmedals home to Aurora.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His achievements, along with\nthose of Special Olympics Coach Deb Finniear were recognized with special\ncertificates at Council last week to kick off Special Olympics Month in Aurora.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

April is here and, thanks to\nthe yearly proclamation from Town Hall, it is a chance for all of Aurora to\ncelebrate these hometown heroes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first Special Olympics\nMonth in Aurora was proclaimed last year by Mayor Geoff Dawe to mark the tenth\nanniversary of Special Olympics Aurora, and it is a tradition carried on this\nyear by Mayor Tom Mrakas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A lot has transpired in the\nintervening months, according to Theresa Buck of Special Olympics Aurora, and\nthe local club has celebrated many milestones that have seen them move the\ngoalposts even further for the organization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From its beginnings in 1965,\nSpecial Olympics has grown to serve over two million athletes with intellectual\ndisabilities in more than 150 countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Special Olympics has been\na formal part of Aurora\u2019s sporting life since 2008 with the formation of the\nAurora Special Ducks swim club, which was founded in conjunction with the\nAurora Ducks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSince this inauguration of\nsport, we have continued to grow and currently offer seven sports that include\nnine sports programs that run year-round. These sports include swimming, basketball,\nbocce, golf, softball, rhythmic gymnastics and soccer,\u201d Ms. Buck told Council\nlast week. \u201cWe have 110 athletes and 95 volunteers. Athletes can age in range\nfrom 8 to 90, however there are two programs offered by the Town of Aurora. The\nfirst is Active Start, a program for children aged two to six, and Fundamentals\nfor children aged seven to twelve that assist in preparing children at this\nyoung age for participation in Special Olympics Aurora sports-specific\nprograms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur 2018 year was a very rewarding\nyear for Special Olympics Aurora. In April, we celebrated our tenth anniversary\nand the 50th<\/sup> anniversary of\nSpecial Olympics. In recognition of both achievements, we arranged a flag raising ceremony and declaration by the Town\nCrier at Town Hall who announced April as Special Olympics Month. The actual\nwritten declaration and flag are available for viewing in our trophy case at\nthe Aurora Family Leisure Complex and we will be requesting from the Town that\nApril again be the official Special Olympics Month here in Aurora. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe also introduced the\ninaugural annual Swim-A-Thon at the SARC. It was a project initiated by\nswimmers Mary and Sally Haberer, Nancy Black and a host of volunteers and\nparticipants. Plans are in place for a repeat during the Home Show this year.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to their programs\non the fields and on the courts, Special Olympics Aurora also offers a public\nspeaking program which, Ms. Buck said, has since morphed into the Athlete\nLeadership Program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking ahead for the rest of 2019, Ms. Buck says the club will\nsee athletes participate in the Provincial Qualifiers in basketball, swimming\nand rhythmic gymnastics. In addition, with the help of a recently added\nvolunteer, they will put renewed focus on a Healthy Lifestyles program to work\nin conjunction with their sports offerings.<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir Last Summer, Gary Freeman brought home the hardware. An athlete with Special Olympics Aurora, Mr. Freeman represented Team Ontario at the Nationals in Nova Scotia and found a comfortable place at the podium, bringing two of three medals home to Aurora. His achievements, along with those of Special Olympics Coach Deb Finniear […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":23392,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[24,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-sports","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/2019-04-04-03.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-66e","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-15 18:04:15","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}