SYRACUSE – As part of their Kosciusko Youth Leadership Academy project, three Wawasee juniors are working with the Special Olympics of Kosciusko County. During half time of the Wawasee vs. NorthWood boys basketball game Friday, Special Olympics athletes will scrimmage. The three juniors also will sell T-shirts at the game to raise money for Special Olympics. The three Wawasee juniors are Courtney Linnemeier, Justin Cirillo and Jada Antonides. In a telephone interview Monday, Linnemeier said each member of KYLA has to do an individual or group project. “We decided to do Special Olympics because each of us have been touched by the Special Olympics in special ways,” Linnemeier said. About a month ago, she said, the threesome went to a Special Olympics practice. The athletes practice on Wednesdays. Since then, they’ve gone to two practices but plan to stay with them for the school year. Linnemeier said she wants to work with them through the summer. For their project, she said they came up with the idea for the athletes to scrimmage at a home Wawasee basketball game. The Special Olympics team will scrimmage for up to four minutes, and then the Skilled team will showcase their shooting and dribbling teams. The T-shirts at Friday’s game will be sold for $10 each, with proceeds going to help the Special Olympics athletes pay for their registration fees and other costs. The T-shirts are white, and on the front they say Special Olympics of Kosciusko County. Also at Friday’s game, Linnemeier said they will raffle off a 24-inch HDTV. “These people are a big part of our community and they don’t get a lot of recognition or anything,” Linnemeier said. Friday is the students’ big event for their KYLA project, she stated, but they might do a few side projects here and there.
