Fair Grove’s Very Own Winter Games

Fair Grove High School continues to host their community wide Winter Games on March 5th, 2021.

“The Winter Games is an opportunity that the Special Education students at Fair Grove get to show off their athletic ability in front of the community,” explained Kyle Fritz (12), who helped with the event.

One of the main ways that the Winter Games helps to build the community is that all of the proceeds immediately go to Champions for Kids. On Champions for Kids website (championforkids.org), they state that their mission to, “help end child poverty, with a priority focus on youth homelessness.” How they go about this is by “providing children in our nation’s highest poverty schools with incentives, rewards, resources and training to help them be successful in school and in life.”

The Winter Games is a special and unique opportunity for Special Education students to really come out of their shell and  bond with their friends and family. Lauren Thomlinson (11) said, “Most of those students never get a chance to participate in sports, so this is their opportunity to have something similar to sports.”

At the Winter Games, there generally is a ‘buddy system’. Typically, a high schooler works the Winter Games through Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA), and that specific student would be partnered with a Special Education student throughout each event during the Winter Games. There are six events total to compete in. FBLA has established the buddy system to ensure that the Special Education students have the best experience they could possibly have. Lauren Thomlinson has had experience with this in past years by being a buddy to a special education student her freshman year.

Not all of the workers are just doing the buddy system. Kyle Fritz explained, “I have helped run Winter Games before! It was my sophomore year and I assisted the obstacle course event!” He continued, “I take pride in working the winter games and love volunteering.”

The Winter Games will be taking place on March 5th from 3-7pm. The admission price to get in is one dollar. The Winter Games are being hosted throughout the Fair Grove Middle School and High School. Finally the opening and the closing ceremonies are being held in the high school gym.