News Letter

Press Release

Kayla Visser

385-245-5005

404 S. 300 W. Cedar City, Utah 84720

kmaried1004@gmail.com

Advocating for Those With Special Needs While Coaching at Special Olympics Utah

Cedar City, Utah September 22, 2017—Kayla Visser was able to volunteer her time at TURN Community Services and help them prepare for Special Olympics. She advocated the needs of the clients by coaching them in their track and field events. While doing this, she was able to go to their Regional competition in St. George, Utah and then travel up to Provo, Utah for their State competition. She did all of this with an EDGE project in mind but to also gain more experience working with the special needs community. 

In order to complete this project, she went through training requirements to be able to be a certified coach for Special Olympics Utah. By doing so, she was able to teach pointers on how to run faster, throw a shot put further, and jump a longer distance. She also learned how to keep the clients safe and respond to any emergency’s that were needed. Kayla was also able to go to St. George to help with a fundraiser to earn money for Special Olympics. She learned how challenging this field can be, but also how rewarding it is to watch the clients receive their medals from doing a job well done. 

The EDGE project is a requirement to all students at Southern Utah University and it is designed to give students an opportunity to have experience in a certain field. For this project, being involved in the Community was the main goal. It is intended to go onto resumes and digital portfolios to allow students to have more skill and understanding of the real world when they graduate. 

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