Best Buddies Cibola High Focuses on Inclusion Through Friendship
by KEVIN CRONK
Best Buddies New Mexico
Rebecca and Shawna are Best Buddies
Buddy Director James Keefner jails the CP!
CP Briahna Sedillo with Mrs. Duff |
Cibola High School has a history of including all students with disabilities in the general community. Students with disabilities participate in general education classes, often mentored by general education peers.
Prior to the 2008-2009 school year, Cibola had an organization called S.T.A.N.D. (Students Taking A New Direction). This organization sponsored events that emphasized the acceptance and inclusion of ALL students in Cibola activities.
We were ready and excited when we were able to morph into BEST BUDDIES. During our first year with BEST BUDDIES we made connections and learned more about procedures and communication.
During this school year, because of the work of a dynamic Chapter President and an enthusiastic Buddy Director, BEST BUDDIES has blossomed into a progressive and active organization. Briahna Sedillo and James Keefner have demonstrated effective leadership in the organization.
We kicked the year off with a remarkable Match Party, orchestrated by Briahna and James. Their planning was key to the success of the evening which included balloons, glow sticks, pizza, popcorn and a movie. We were assisted in this by community donations from Domino’s Pizza and Walmart.
One of our goals is to become involved in community service. To that end our members ran games and booths at a local pre-school field day. We also staffed a face-painting booth at Cibola’s Safe Haven Halloween Carnival.
For Thanksgiving, we collected infant formula to donate to The Storehouse. Our members attended the 8th grade Parent Night to introduce BEST BUDDIES to the parents of incoming freshmen.
Our current project is to promote the “Spread the word to end the word” campaign. We have banners, signs, handouts, magnets, and other paraphernalia that we have created to display and distribute during the month of March.
Our members are dedicated to leading the way in treating ALL persons with dignity, especially individuals with intellectual disabilities. We will ask the students at Cibola to sign the pledge on a banner that will be displayed in our concourse on March 3rd to demonstrate our support for this important issue.
We will also be reciting the pledge in unison at our spring sports assembly. We are grateful to our principal, Elena Salazar, and activities director, Ben Shultz, for their help in arranging this process. They have been strong advocates from the beginning!
We appreciate our community in helping us to raise funds to send two students to the Leadership Conference in Indiana. Our hope is to raise enough money to send James Keefner, our Buddy Director, and Shawna Vizcaino, our Chapter President for the 2010-2011 school year to the conference.
We have sponsored fund raising activities with the help of Red Robin, What the Fudge, Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club, and Cibola faculty. We have three more fund-raising activities in the planning stages now. We are hopeful—and working hard—that we will reach our goal before the end of the school year.
Our BEST BUDDIES friendships are doing well—so much so that peer buddies do not think about logging hours (although we know this is a necessary task). Another important aspect of these friendships is the advocacy role that our students have adopted. They are preeminent in promoting acceptance and decrying segregation and injustice.
As the end of the school year approaches, we are sad to see Briahna Sedillo, Salman Haji, and Bianca Garcia leave us. Although we celebrate their graduation, we know we will miss their high spirits when the new school year begins. |
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