Students who are interested in helping out students with disabilities while also trying to strengthen their college applications should stop by Room 176 on October 8th to join Best Buddies.
Best Buddies is an international club where students with intellectual disabilities are paired with students that do not have a disability to form a real friendship, inside and outside of school. The club aims to create meaningful connections and inclusivity among students.
Best Buddies will be starting on October 8th, and every meeting afterwards will be on the first and third Tuesday of the month. All students have to do to join is go to the meetings and see if they enjoy the environment of Best Buddies.
After going to the first meeting of the club, if they decide it isn’t for them there is no obligation to stay. “We want people to be a part of the club that are going to enjoy being part of the club,” said the sponsor Anina Dall. “ If you’re not interested, then we don’t want you.”
Students without disabilities greatly benefit from this new experience, “I learned how to be a better person, how to include others, and just overall to be able to develop friendships,” said sophomore student Leah Winchester. “I would recommend it to others because I think everyone should be able to gain perspective of different things and form relationships with the other club members.”
Best Buddies also helps students with disabilities by teaching them, “how to interact with individuals without disabilities,” said Hannah Green, founder of the club. “The kind of perceived social norms that individuals without disabilities pick up that sometimes may be lacking inside the classrooms.”
In the past Best Buddies has impacted the community in various different ways, including raising money for the friendship walk, positively impacting to the Exceptional Student Education (ESE) students at Cape Coral High School, participating in the Best Buddies Champion of the Year, and had officers attend the National International Leadership Conference.
As the club continues to grow, the future of Best Buddies focuses “to become as involved and inclusive throughout the school as possible,” said Dall. “We kind of want to grow it to be as big as we can.”
“I want it to be something that people think of when they think of Cape Coral High School,” said Green. “I especially would like it to be more community based.”
Best Buddies doesn’t just support the students, but also the school as a whole.
“We became a Special Olympics nationally recognized school,” said Dall. “So, just having Best Buddies, having the club at this school, helped us, the whole school, to become a Special Olympics nationally certified school.”
“Best Buddies has brought our school together. It’s so nice to see students who don’t usually hang out together become friends and support each other,” said sophomore Lina Perez.
