The Special Olympics – May 5, 2007
by Claire Bailey
A little late with my report, but better
late than never. Right? Karen was kind enough to do a write up last year,
so, truthfully, this just fell through the crack.
The planning for the day actually started
in October of ’06 with a call from Jon Muskrat, the Special Olympics Western
Mass coordinator. He was thinking of combining the SO games for Hampden,
Hampshire, Berkshire and Worcester Counties AND having the track and swim events
on the same day. He was making calls to his “key” people to see what they
thought about the idea and if they we willing and able to handle the increase in
the numbers. Jon estimated that with the athletes and volunteers, lunch
for about 1,000 would be needed. A quick call to our WMPHC president, Mary
Ann, and I got the go ahead to commit the club. Year by year the numbers
have grown. The previous year we had prepared for about 600, but, due to a
change in the date, we didn’t have anywhere near that number. Jon
was throwing out the 1,000 number just as a guesstimate. The number seemed
daunting, but Mary Ann assured me, and my co-chair, Marilyn, that we could pull
it off. So, we committed the club way back in October of ’06. Our
first official meeting was in January of ‘07 in Sturbridge. Jon had
assembled about 15 point people – one person would be handling all the
volunteers from Worcester, arranging for their recruiting, getting them to
Holyoke, etc. Another person would be in charge of the award staging area,
etc. Each person there had worked on numerous events and represented a
piece of the intricate puzzle that would become the Spring Track/Swim
Events. Marilyn and I attended that meeting and came away very impressed
with the people we had met. The event was to be held at the
Holyoke High School, the setting we had used the previous year. As
the logistics were worked out, we would be told where the “food area” would
be. The next meeting was in March at the Holyoke High School. At
this meeting, I concentrated on meeting with Terri and Wallis, who ran the
Holyoke Rec Center food concession at the high school. I had worked with Wallis
the previous year. We exchanged phone numbers and some
preliminary ideas and called it a night. They were willing to do some
shopping for the club, an offer we took them up on.
A couple of informal meeting and we
decided that because of the large number of participants, we would handle lunch
as “take out”, having the coaches or a representative of each team pick up lunch
for their respective teams. As the day got closer, we shifted into higher
gear – Marilyn, MaryAnn, Keith, me – we started contacting vendors for
donations, making lists, more calls, e-mails, revised
lists…
We had some vendors that did not respond
this year, making it necessary to buy more hot dogs, but On the Border came
through with 12 bags of chips, NewAlliance Bank came through with a $1,000
donation specifically for the lunch, Spectrum Analytical donated $100, and
Friendly’s let us purchase tons of dogs, buns and condiments at
cost. So, a couple of weeks before the event, Marilyn and I shopped
ourselves out – buying bags and bags and chips, cheese doodles and
cookies. The wedneday before the BIG DAY, Allison came over to the house
to join Marilyn, Frank, my daughter and me to package the chips, etc. into
individual serving sizes. We decided that night we needed more snacks and
cookies. How could that be?? And Marilyn (wisely so) decided
that we would need more hot dogs than the 1200 we originally planned on.
So, the day before the event, Marilyn and I took Frank’s truck and made a
big loop, picking up more chips, cookies, and 1400 hot dogs and buns from
Chicopee Provision and Friendly’s. Luckily, Holyoke HS said we could store
the dogs and buns at the school for the overnight.
The morning of the May 5th
arrived and the weather was perfect. Frank fit everything that
needed to go into his truck, and we were off. When we got to
the high school, the PH team was already on cite, ready to help unpack, sort and
organize what seemed like a mountain of food. Rick was there with his
tents and tables PLUS a hot dog steamer. Kevin and Jane had come all the way
from Albany. It was truly amazing, after a few minutes of confusion,
things were laid out and organized. Barb started on the “take out” bags for the
teams, condiments were bagged, the tables for the non-participants were set
up…we kicked in like a well oiled machine. Hot dogs started rolling and
lunches were being taken away by 10:30/11:00. at the end of
the day, there was hardly a crumb left, we served just about 1400 hot dogs,
snacks, drinks. And after the final count – we gave $300 back to the
Special Olympics.
Let me go on record to day – although
Marilyn and I do the up-front prep work, there is no way that we could pull this
off without you all. I’m proud to be part of the club and sincerely thank
each and every member, friends, family members, all those that helped in any way
THANK YOU.