Volunteer of the Year 2012 Katie Schlegel
Channel: United Way of East Central Iowa
Date: 20/06/2012

At our Annual Volunteer of the Year Award Breakfast we announced the winners for Volunteer of the Year in 5 categories: Youth, Adult, Senior Adult, Group, and Business.

Katie Schlegel was the winner in the Youth Category.  Katie volunteers in Life-Skills Focus Classrooms and extra-curricular groups like Best Buddies and Project Unify.  Katie's contributions include working with students with special needs, helping students practice social skills, and getting students involved in community activities.  She participates in and organizes community and social outings for the students, as well as working in the classroom.   She is a very strong role model that the students gravitate to and follow the example she sets. 

United Way would like to thank Katie and the Best Buddies Program for all their hard work this year!

Transcript:
Katie Schlegel, Linn-Mar High School Best Buddies Program:
"I got started in volunteering with special needs kids because they were always integrated into my classes and so I was always around them and they always asked for my help.  I started volunteering in their classrooms and it just kind of flowed right into Best Buddies.  

Best Buddies program is, kind of like, you are matched with a special needs kid - like a gen ed kid and a special ed kid - and you help each other once a week or talk to each other once a week, text messaging or writing letters, talking to each other in the hallway and they have one big event each month.  It's not really much different than hanging out with your own friends.  You pick whatever you want to do, you know, if you want to go out to dinner or if you want to keep it low key.  You don't have to spend a ton of money to do this too.  

'Do you guys want to play a different game or are you good with basketball?' 

I have a boy as a Best Buddy and he's all about video games and all that stuff.  We like to play Star Wars and we like to go play football and do a bunch of sports,  and then we also like to go to the group activities with Best Buddies because we can see all of our friends too.  I'll be having the worst day and I'll go in and help them and I'll be coming out with a much better attitude. 

If people want to volunteer, it is one of the greatest experiences that you can have.  Everyone says oh, you get such a warm and fuzzy feeling when you get done and it's really true especially when you actually are interacting and seeing them grow and become a lot better people."