From a young age I knew that there were people in the world that were different. My sister was born August 26th of 2002, bright eyed and ready to conquer the world. I did not truly notice anything was different about her, Crissa was simply just Crissa. She had her quirks, but I thought nothing of them. Down syndrome is not something that I would use when describing Crissa. Instead, she was silly and curious. Because of her special needs she got to participate in the Special Olympics, something that benefitted her greatly. The first time I went to the Special Olympics was when I was still in elementary school. I watched as these kids, kids that the world thinks can make nothing of themselves, won medals and participated in something wonderful. …show more content…
This group of people was so diverse and they all had their own personalities, yet not a single one of them had a hateful bone in their body. This of course was just the first of many Special Olympics, and although it was the first that opened my eyes to this world it was not the one that truly helped my change and grow as a person. It was actually because of this that led to the event that changed me. My sister enjoyed the Special Olympics so much that we put her into a Special Olympics gymnastics team. The kids were great, the coaches were great and overall everything was lovely. I was not old enough to volunteer for them until the past few years, and the year that I decided to do so really changed my whole life. I grew to love the kids; I had a whole new understanding of how they worked and just how special they were.
My first day of volunteering with the gymnastics team was an interesting one. There are eight girls on the teams, no girl even remotely similar to another. One of the girls that truly touched my heart is a little girl named Katie. Katie immediately made a connection with me, not wanting to leave my side. Although she could be a little hard to handle, I soon learned all the little tricks to get her to do what she should be doing. For example, whenever she is being stubborn and not wanting to do what she is suppose to, you just have to give her your biggest smile and ask