Spring Break and April Recaps

Hello everyone! Here's a recap of all the events from Spring Break leading up to today's Kid's Relay event!

The first event since the March 4th Bash was the Spring Break March 31st Soccer Special Olympics. The buddies at Project TEAM played against many other schools including Arlington High School. The Special Olympics was held at the California School of the Deaf and the buddies had a lot of fun playing the game! Project TEAM won five games because many of our buddies were so active, including Kevin O'Donnel and Jason Albert. Trent's father was also at this event filming the game while Kevin's father cheered the buddies on. At the end of the game, all the buddies received a Special Olympics Medal. College Buddies Stephanie Do and Anna Nguyen chatted with the buddies as usual and they were very honored to receive medals even though they did not participate in the game!

That night the Inland Empire Bash was held at Edward's Mansion in Redlands. The theme for the night was "Evening Under the Stars" and many people came dressed very elegantly. Many Best Buddies folks danced, chatted, and ate Mexican food. Nearing the end of the event was the exciting raffle and the announcement of the most active high school chapter, which just happened to be Jurupa High School. We were glad to hear that the chapter that won the most active award was also from the Inland Empire. Go Inland Empire! Anna was excited to see familiar faces of the high school directors who she met during the Summer 2005 International Leadership Conference. Thank you Kevin I., Anna, Kieu, and Hugo for making it to this event! The best part was being able to spend time with Becky our program manager!

As the first week of school started for UCR students, we had our first meeting for Spring Quarter. The meeting was on April 5th, and the turn out was great! Maybe it was the FREE pizza (j/k)! Whatever it was, the participation was excellent with over 20 people attending. Voting took place, many people turned in nominations (for the UCR chapter award), and many left with gifts that we gave out.

Our first fundraising event this quarter took place during the first week of school. Thank goodness it did not rain when "Matachos" was scheduled to come onto campus and sell their merchandise consisting of jewelry and bags. Nina Grewal (college buddy) supported "Matachos" by buying some of their merchandise. By sponsoring this vendor onto campus, we earned $300 this quarter! We thank Sonia Ibanez from "Matachos" for working with us a second time this year.

In April, we participated in Discovery Day recruiting events. Our first was during the weekend of the first week of school. On April 8, Thi, Kevin I., and Anna came out onto the UCR campus to set up a booth displaying our information. We signed up many eager incoming freshman students and were glad to hear that many already knew about Best Buddies from their high school!

The next day a few students worked together to make a scrapbook for the application of the Best Buddies International Outstanding Award. Despite a whole day of work, Stephanie, Kevin I., Anna, Kieu, and Brian were able to complete the scrapbook. The scrapbook consisted of an essay portion answering questions such as how our chapter showed commitment to the international mission. We also had many recaps of events, our feature in the Highlander, and sample letters in our application. Once again, thank you for all of the students who helped and also for Stephanie who will be mailing in the application. Results for this award will be provided in July.

Friday, April 14 was the deadline for turning in nominations for the Outstanding Chapter Award for UC Riverside. We turned in as many as 20 nominations and even Student Life were surprised that we turned in so many. Thank you all for turning in nominations, especially our advisers Eldon, Dr. Blacher, and Becky! We will hear about the results by May 18 and details will be provided on this.

Christopher R, Anna, Kevin I., and Hugo came to Dr. Blacher's Education 116 to do a quick presentation about Best Buddies. First up to speak was Anna who gave the history of Best Buddies, then Kevin I. talked about the exciting positions we have. Christopher R. then talked about his experiences as an associate member and lastly Hugo talked about how he enjoyed being a buddy! We are so excited that Adriana Gomez, who heard about us through this presentation, is now our newest associate member!

The next was our Discovery Recruitment II (April 22) in which many volunteers came to help out! Thank you Thi, Marisol, Janette, Aimee, Kevin I, Stephanie, and Anna for recruiting! Thank you Karisma for making the flyers & Christopher Tran and Kevin Izquierdo for making the new display board!

Yesterday we had our last Discovery Day Recruitment III. We had a little over 10 people sign up for Best Buddies. We even had the President of a high school Best Buddies chapter sign up. Great! Thank you Anna and Shih-Hao (interested member) for recruiting!

Today we had our Community Service Event (pictures will be up www.best-buddies-riverside.blogspot.com by tomorrow)! Many people attended this event! Among the buddies were Robert, Felix, Hugo, Trent and his father, Johnny, Josh, and David! Among the UCR members were Nina, Sara, Jenny, Jenna, Freida, Christopher R., Christopher T, Heather, Karisma, Stephanie, Aimee, Adriana (newest member), Anna, and Kieu! Our volunteers were divided into many groups. Some worked at the Cash Cube station in which kids caught floating money while others worked at the bowling booth. Other volunteers worked at the princess station where they collected tickets and helped make colorful and creative visors for children. Of course these game booths came with prizes for the little kids! Our volunteers enjoyed free drinks and snacks. There were many performers (UCR's Salsa Club) and booths during the whole event. A few of us even got stopped to be interviewed (and videotaped) by the Ronald McDonald House. The video will probably be shown in conferences. Way to go for our Best Buddies signs. They make a difference!

Let's thank our interested officers who are currently being trained for next year: Aimee, Karisma, Kevin, Kieu, Janette, and Marisol. Every weekend we have a chat room officer meeting in which we all discuss and vote on events!

Lastly, thank you Dr. Blacher for making the phone calls! Also, Dr. Blacher was able to contact a webmaster who put our information directly onto the UCR webpage. We hope that you saw the feature of us!

Sincerely,

BB Officers