Thirty years ago, there wasn’t many places in Kingston where children with special needs could play on a team or take up an individual sport.
Then Stephanie Beauregard came along.
In 1990, her 11-year-old son Kevin (who has Down Syndrome) wasn’t able to join any mainstream sports activities. So Beauregard set out, with Judy Secker and Margrit Choy, to create opportunities for their kids—Kevin, Brian, and Laura.
Beauregard and her husband Norm have two other children who both competed in traditional sports growing up. But Kevin was left out—until Special Olympics gave him an opportunity to play, compete, enjoy a sense of belonging, and make lifelong friends.
“At the time, there was already an informal group of adult athletes playing softball, but Kingston was not yet recognized as a ‘community’ within the Special Olympics Ontario (SOO) organization,” Beauregard says. So, the three women approached SOO to start an official Special Olympics community in Kingston to engage more people with intellectual disabilities in sport. Their first group of athletes included their three kids and two others.
Beauregard remains the community co-ordinator of Special Olympics Ontario-Kingston to this day. Kevin, now 46, works at a local big box store.
"Special Olympics fundamentally give neurodiverse people the same sporting opportunities that their peers have,” Beauregard says. The Olympics’ goals are to promote health, fitness, and inclusion.
“It’s much about social connections as the sport, to feel that they’re part of a group. We see athletes who come in are kind of shy and withdrawn. After a year, that person is completely different. It just lifts them up.
Today, Special Olympics Ontario-Kingston has more than 250 local athletes who train and compete year-round in 18 different sports. “Many of our athletes are selected to go on to compete at provincial, national, or world Special Olympics events,” says Beauregard. The Special Olympics run in the same four-year cycle as the summer and winter Olympic games and athletes compete in regional qualifying events a year ahead of the Ontario games.
What makes these Olympics unique,” says Beauregard, “is that athletes of different ages compete in the same race or sport but medals are awarded by the person’s age. I think it’s important because it emphasizes the individual.
Stephanie Beauregard herself was recently awarded a medal—a King Charles III Coronation Medal—for her work with Special Olympics Ontario-Kingston. This is an honour bestowed on those who have made “a significant contribution to Canada or to a particular province, territory, region or community of Canada or have made an outstanding achievement abroad that brings credit to Canada.”
Special Olympics Ontario-Kingston is always looking for volunteer coaches. If you can spend a few hours a week working with local athletes, get in touch with them.
