Best Buddies Hooping It Up Celebrates Five Years Helping Local Students And Adults With Special Needs

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Students at the University of Windsor will be ‘Hooping It Up’ this Thursday to help adults with special needs and raise money and awareness for their Best Buddies club.

‘Hooping It Up’ with Best Buddies Canada is a basketball free-throw competition and awareness event. For a $2 entry fee, each participant attempts to sink as many free-throws as possible in one-minute.

Three National Grand Prizes of $500 will be awarded to the top shooters across the country as well as individual prizes for participating schools. ‘Hooping It Up’ with Best Buddies Canada invites the entire student body and community to get moving and embrace their school spirit in support of inclusion for people with special needs.

“After five years of ‘Hooping It Up’ students and adults with special needs are being included in schools across the country now more than ever before,” says Steven Pinnock, executive director of Best Buddies Canada. “This year we are expecting 10,000 participants. Every school that runs Best Buddies is making a difference by showing student volunteers and people with special needs that they are more similar than different. ‘Hooping It Up’ gives people with special needs the opportunity to compete alongside their mainstream peers.”

Best Buddies Canada is a national charity that helps to foster friendships between individuals with special needs with student volunteers in over 400 universities, colleges, high schools, and elementary schools across the country. Through Best Buddies, students and adults with special needs are given the opportunities to enjoy the same experiences many of us take for granted- such as going to the mall, watching a movie, or simply enjoying the company of a friend. In Windsor, there are eight Best Buddies chapters including University of Windsor, St. Anne Catholic High School, and Walkerville Collegiate Institute for the Creative Arts.

It runs from 3pm to 5pm at the Education Gym attached to the CAW Student Centre.