Last year’s Best Buddies club was hanging on by a thread with only 46 members in the club. This year, numbers have more than tripled. Members get their joy from watching their buddies have fun at the meetings. One Quakertown student commented that her “favorite thing about Best Buddies is getting to see how excited the kids get. [Her] buddy seems to be very social and LOVES when [they] get to hang out”. The purpose of the club is for special education students to be able to hang out with kids they normally would not talk to or hang out with.

Being the President has allowed me to plan activities that help get the regular ed kids and the kids with intellectual and developmental disabilities to come together and have fun. My team and I plan different activities for every month, so the buddies get to learn something new at each meeting. This month we had a St. Patrick’s Day Scavenger Hunt. The buddies used a calculator and did simple math to figure out which room to go to. This allowed for some of the regular ed kids to help them solve the problems and create new friendships.

Seeing these kids light up when they come to the meetings is the reason why people come. According to a survey, a majority of the 50 kids surveyed emphasized how much they love to come to Best Buddies to see the kids smile and laugh with them. There were also some kids who joined Best Buddies so they “could have a fun time with friends and help kids who may not usually participate in these types of activities”.

Another big reason why the Best Buddies program is so important is “because it gives the buddies opportunities to interact with other people outside of the classroom”. The program helps improve life skills for the kids and creates one-on-one friendships. All month long the buddies talk about the program, questioning when the next one is. This provides insight into how crucial the program is.

 Our End of the year Ball is something that is new this year and it is very exciting for everyone. It’s going to be a night that everyone will remember; especially the special education students who do not do a lot of activities where they get to dress up and party. The Ball is a great way for them to socialize with others while dancing the night away. Our dance will be on May 27th in the upper gym. The football team has been generous enough to donate their time to help us put up all the decorations. Their booster club helped us during our march meeting, by buying all of the prizes for our members. This ball will be a great way to end our Best Buddies Season this 2021-2022 school year.