Dribbling, running and fun all take place in the Revere High School (RHS) gym on Tuesdays at 7:00 pm. Special needs children and student volunteers are playing basketball, enjoying each other’s company.
Empower Sports is a non-profit organization that develops social skills and self esteem and inspires special needs children through sporting events.
Jake Jackson is the program director at Empower Sports and described the organization as an opportunity for everyone to get involved.
“We’re a program for people with disabilities, really any age, any ability level, anybody that’s interested in sports to get them involved. It not only improves the students physically, like stay active physically, but also really stay active socially with other people in similar situations,” Jackson said.
The organization started in 2012; however, Empower Sports came to Revere just two years ago. They schedule the games every week for six weeks and then take some time off before resuming games or changing sports again, in an effort to create an actual sports season.
“We schedule everything in six week blocks, basically. So it’s once a week for six weeks, [then] we take a few weeks off, and then we’ll start a new sport or, in this case, we did basketball, then basketball again. We try to keep, kind of a steady presence similar to school sports seasons. There’s a little transition period, but we try to have something going pretty much here around,” Jackson said.
Allison McIntyre, intervention specialist at Revere Middle School, went to a couple of games in the area, and when Empower Sports reached out to start at Revere, she organized students to volunteer with the intensive needs children.
“A couple of families who were involved in Empower Sports just invited me to come and watch the students participate after school, and so I went and checked it out a few times. And then they expressed an interest in Revere coming here. I helped for the first few blocks to get groups to volunteer and be at the session,” McIntyre said.
These basketball games create an inclusive environment for all children and adults to enjoy themselves and develop their social skills. McIntyre explained that the children are usually in their own bubble during the school day, but the basketball games include volunteers from different sports and clubs, giving special needs children opportunities to socialize with different students.
“Empower has actually brought the team to them. And they want their teachers to come and their other friends to come, and classmates get to sign up to help out as peers. So it’s nice because . . . it’s created such a normal middle school experience for them in terms of their part of something, and it’s at their home school, their home courts, it’s just something for them to feel really good about,” McIntyre said.
Senior basketball player Hadley Hajdu has volunteered with Empower Sports for three years and participated in over twenty events during that time.
“I got involved because during my sophomore year I had volunteered once, then after that I just completely fell in love with the program and I’ve helped out ever since then,” Hajdu said.
Hajdu explained that special needs children do not have many opportunities to develop social skills, so these games are important to her as well as the special needs children.
“For these kids this is what they look forward to in their week. A lot of them do not get the opportunity to do these kinds of things during school, so it lets them go out and make friends while playing basketball,” Hajdu said.
Jackson and Mcintrye shared the same sentiment, expressing that parents enjoy having Empower Sports as an option since activities can be hard to coordinate for kids with special needs.
“One of our goals is to take what we’ve built and expand more on it and try to get more people involved. For a lot of people, finding something for their child to do after school is challenging based on their schedules and stuff. So being able to be an outlet for a lot of different parents helps,” Jackson said.
Many people think of basketball as a fast-paced sport but for kids with different needs Empower Sports modifies the sport to create a more inclusive, fun environment.
“It’s kind of hard to even have anyone understand what it is that they do, because it’s like, I’ve had students whose parents are like ‘I’m not really sure if that’s gonna be their thing.’ But, you just have to see it in action because in their head they think of all that . . . is what a regular basketball practice or game would look like,” McIntyre said.
The next event Empower Sports is hosting is taking place on May 8 and is called Adaptive Rec Day. This day will consist of different sports for special needs kids from kindergarten to 12th grade and will also attempt to get more students involved in the Empower Sports program.
“We’ve invited local schools to come and participate from kindergarten on up, from moderate to intensive classrooms, to come and just be a part of the different games that they host. We will have flag football, soccer and probably a track and field type station too,” McIntyre said.
McIntyre is currently looking for volunteers for future Empower Sports events, whether a student is involved in a sport or just needs volunteer hours. To volunteer with Empower Sports at Adaptive Rec Day, contact Allison McIntyre at [email protected].
Click HERE for more coverage on Allison McIntyre.
