Pin the tail on the turkey, Thanksgiving crafts and bingo were just some of the activities Binghamton University’s Best Buddies chapter participated in on Sunday afternoon in the Events Center.
Around 40 people gathered in the Tau Bearcat Club Room for the chapter’s third event since its chartering in spring 2017. Best Buddies, an international organization that aims to facilitate friendships between volunteers and people with intellectual or developmental disabilities (IDD), began on campus after Simone DeBellis, the president of the University’s Best Buddies chapter and a sophomore majoring in biology, set out for a Student Association charter last semester to join over 400 college chapters in the nation.
DeBellis said she wanted to bring Best Buddies to BU because she was a part of her high school’s chapter, and wanted to continue her work with the organization in college.
“I really missed having the opportunity to be in Best Buddies,” DeBellis said. “It’s just really awesome because we’re able to show people that have IDD that they’re not excluded from anything, because so often they are and it’s not fair.”
Best Buddies caters to individuals with Down syndrome, autism, cerebral palsy and other developmental disabilities. While many school chapters aim to facilitate relationships between students and people with intellectual or developmental disabilities, the Best Buddies organization also aims to integrate people with developmental disabilities into the workforce.
To do so, the University’s Best Buddies chapter partners with Life is Washable, a local family and caregiver engagement program for children and adults with intellectual or developmental disabilities. Jennifer O’Brien, the executive director of Life is Washable and the Magic Paintbrush Project, said she’d wanted to implement a Best Buddies chapter in the Southern Tier ever since she saw the organization present at a conference. When DeBellis contacted her about creating one at BU, she jumped at the opportunity.
The chapter provides peer buddies and associate buddies to people with developmental disabilities. Peer buddies are paired up with one other person, while associate buddies interact with everyone during meetings.
O’Brien said she’s known many of the participants of Best Buddies for years and said that Best Buddies not only helps tackle the obstacles that people with developmental disabilities face, but also benefits the students who volunteer.
“They get people so much better and they are often overlooked, they are often left in the corner, they are often ignored and they’re hardly ever appreciated for who they really are and who they can be,” O’Brien said. “They bring more to the table in learning, in growing, in potential and I think that’s a gift to all the BU students who get involved with them.”
Emma Ross, the treasurer for Best Buddies and a sophomore double-majoring in political science and psychology, is a peer buddy to Megan Marrero, a 22-year-old woman with Down syndrome, and said that they text and talk all the time about topics including boys and fashion.
“[Best Buddies] basically gives them what societally is often denied to people with disabilities and creates a really amazing environment because we’re all equals here,” Ross said. “We’re just friends and that’s why we’re here.”
Pat Szczepanski, a mother of a 23-year-old woman with a developmental disability, has been utilizing the Life is Washable organization for over 10 years. She said Best Buddies is a good way for her daughter to socialize with people her own age.
“I am the mom of a 23-year-old girl who just wants to be a part of something,” Szczepanski said. “She wants a friend, she doesn’t know how to do it, socialization is very difficult, so she’s very excited to participate.”
Life is Washable also works with the University’s athletic department to offer adaptive sports programs for people with developmental disabilities, called the Fair Play program. O’Brien says that although this previous partnership with the University has been beneficial, Best Buddies helps foster a special relationship with BU and the community.
“I’ve seen these kids since they were in elementary school, middle school and here they are now in their young 20s and they have so much potential and they have so much friendship to offer people and to see other people wanting to be that with them here on campus,” O’Brien said.