Volunteers are needed from southwest Iowa to help with next month’s Special Olympics Summer Games in Omaha/Council Bluffs. More than 1,200 athletes are expected for the event and organizer Katie Bowser says the only way it can succeed is with hundreds of volunteers offering to help. Bowser says they need volunteers for a host of duties.
“Timing at track and field, awarding the medals,” she says. “We need help selling merchandise, checking in volunteers. We need lots of help with facilities, setting things up, tearing them down.” Bowser says volunteers do not need prior experience, just a willingness to help and learn.
“The day of the event the volunteer is coming to, there will be training provided and there is no experience or knowledge required of the sport that you sign up for.” Bowser says the events run May 19th through the 22nd and are actually one of eight Special Olympic competitions that take place in Nebraska each year.
“We’ve got about four-thousand athletes across the state and about 12-hundred of them will be coming to the Omaha area to compete in the Summer Games which host eight of our sports state competitions.” Some of the events include golf, roller skating, swimming and gymnastics. Bowser says about 500 volunteers will be needed to staff this year’s event.
To sign up, visit “www.sone.org“.