The GOAL volunteer program hosted its first Buddy Olympics on Saturday afternoon at Hayden Park.
College volunteers joined community members with special needs for an afternoon of games and activities.
Teams of special needs buddies and Hillsdale student volunteers rotated among three stations, including relay races, volleyball, and freeze dance.
However, when volleyball was rained out, buddy teams resorted to dancing in the rain.
“Did you turn on the rain instead of the speakers?” one of the students joked to GOAL coordinator Lucy Cuneo.
While some of the buddies and volunteers went into the clubhouse, others stayed out and danced until everyone was called into the clubhouse for pizza.
“We just danced outside in the rain,” said volunteer and sophomore Mary Ann Powers. “It was a good time. We did a little Cupid Shuffle, a little Macarena. It was very fun. The energy was high.”
“Even though the rain prevented us from continuing some of our activities, everybody kept high spirits and great energy,” Powers said. “We ended up having a great time sitting out under the porch, talking and chatting with all the buddies and eating our pizza.”
“The event went really well,” said junior Griffin Johnston, who leads the Hillsdale Buddies GOAL program. “We all had a really good time even though it rained.”
The event ended with each of the 11 buddies receiving a certificate.
Two of the buddies, Justin Parker and Casey Morrison, said volleyball was their favorite part of the day. Lindsay Osborn, another one of the buddies, said she enjoyed dancing and eating cheese pizza. Osborn requested her team’s first freeze song to be “That’s What Makes You Beautiful” by One Direction.
“I think my favorite part was dancing with the buddies at the freeze dance because it was such a beautiful way to connect with people and get them all riled up,” Powers said. “I really enjoyed connecting with them in that way.”