Best Buddies looks to open new office in NW Arkansas

Bentonville High School junior Katie Andrews (left) stretches and visits Wednesday with Emmy Schaller, a special-needs student, at the school’s track. Andrews, who swims and runs for Bentonville High School, has been running with Schaller and helping her train for about a year.
Bentonville High School junior Katie Andrews (left) stretches and visits Wednesday with Emmy Schaller, a special-needs student, at the school’s track. Andrews, who swims and runs for Bentonville High School, has been running with Schaller and helping her train for about a year.

A nonprofit organization that promotes the needs of the intellectually and developmentally disabled will set up an office in Northwest Arkansas if a group of local residents can raise enough money for the cause.

Best Buddies International offers a program for children and adults that builds friendships between people with and without disabilities. Local advocates for the disabled view the program as a great answer to the social isolation those with disabilities often experience.

"It's a glaring need in our community," said Kathy Breed, one of the group of 13 Benton County residents organizing the fundraising effort. "We're trying to promote inclusion."

The friendship program connects a disabled person with a buddy who commits to doing one activity per month with that person and making phone contact at least twice per month.

Anthony Kennedy Shriver founded the original Best Buddies chapter at Georgetown University in 1987. Best Buddies incorporated as a nonprofit organization in 1989.

It wasn't until last year Best Buddies came to Arkansas, the 24th state to which the organization has spread.

There are 11 chapters statewide at high schools in Jonesboro, Conway and Bryant and some universities. The only chapter in Northwest Arkansas is one just getting off the ground at the University of Arkansas.

Best Buddies will open an office in Northwest Arkansas and staff it with a full-time employee if the group of volunteers raises $75,000. The employee will be able to facilitate up to 15 chapters in the region's schools.

The group has just begun the fundraising process. A big part of that effort is the Best Buddies Friendship Walk, a 1-mile walk scheduled April 23 in Bentonville.

Michael Caudill, a Bentonville resident and former chief of the Cave Springs Police Department, is a member of the Best Buddies state advisory board. He has an 18-year-old son who is severely developmentally disabled and a 9-year-old daughter with Down syndrome.

The program benefits not just the people with disabilities, but also the nondisabled "peer buddies," Caudill said.

"It teaches them empathy," Caudill said.

The friendship between Bentonville High School students Emmy Schaller and Katie Andrews is an example of the kind of relationship Best Buddies promotes.

Schaller, 17, has a developmental delay caused by a chromosomal abnormality. Andrews, 16, is a developmentally normal teen. Schaller's mother contacted Andrews' mother last year to see if the two teens could work out together.

Schaller and Andrews began running together last summer and their friendship formed.

"It's so much fun," Andrews said. "Every time we run together, she just starts laughing. She gets so excited every time we see each other."

During a get-together last week at the high school track, Andrews presented Schaller with a bag she had artfully filled with Skittles and Rolos. A message at the top of the bag read, "You're the pot of gold at the end of my rainbow."

Schaller burst into giggles as she examined the bag. Then she hugged Andrews.

Libby Schaller said her daughter generally has no problems socializing at school, but she has trouble finding friendships that extend beyond the school day.

"There are people out there who want to be her friend. They just don't know how to connect," Libby Schaller said.

Hailey Setley just launched a Best Buddies chapter at the University of Arkansas, where she's a freshman nursing major.

Setley volunteered as a peer buddy with the organization during her last two years of high school in Columbia, Md. Her friend was an autistic boy who also had epilepsy.

"I loved it," Setley said. "It's very popular on the East Coast, and I personally believe no one with a disability should be treated any differently from anyone else."

The logistics of a college program are a bit more complex than what's involved in a high school program, Setley said. College students often have to go off campus to meet their disabled friends, and not all of the students have a car.

"So it's been a little bit of a rocky start and I'm trying to figure out how to make this possible," Setley said.

The state office for Best Buddies opened in Little Rock in February 2015. Angela Kremers, state director, said she'd like to see additional offices in the state's northwest and northeast regions.

In the organization's first year in Arkansas, nearly 2,000 people have gotten involved in one of the state's 11 chapters, Kremers said.

"It's been a whirlwind of positive activity to move Best Buddies into more of a public light to help people understand who we are," Kremers said. "People have welcomed us with open arms. They are saying, 'This is an amazing program, how can we help.'"

In addition to the friendship program, Best Buddies offers two other programs: one that helps the intellectually and developmentally disabled find jobs and another that educates and empowers them to become leaders, public speakers and advocates.

Best Buddies Arkansas would like to add the jobs program, Kremers said. That would require raising $150,000, she said.

Metro on 03/21/2016

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