With over 10,000 athletes across Wisconsin and thousands of volunteers, SOWI folks have lots of stories to tell – and we want to help you tell them!
To that end, we are pleased to announce a fun new way to help our athletes and supporters tell their stories about Special Olympics Wisconsin! We understand the importance and power of a single story and we want to help you share how Special Olympics Wisconsin has impacted your life. So we are asking YOU—athletes, volunteers, coaches, fans, etc., to share your story with us for the chance to be featured on our new page, My SOWI Story! We will feature a new story every Wednesday on our site and share it on social media. If your story is not featured right away, don’t worry, we will keep it on hand for future use!
MY SOWI Story originally stemmed from the idea of wanting a more effective way to share stories that our athletes and supporters have to tell. Like we said, there are so many amazing, moving, and powerful stories out there among us. How could we help people get their voices out there to share how SOWI has impacted them, their friends or family members?
Athletes high-fiving after a close race at the 2017 State Summer Games
Stories also have the ability to spark a strong emotional reaction which can then encourage people to take action. Sharing the ways SOWI has impacted someone’s life in a positive way is important to helping us communicate to the community why we do what we do here at SOWI and, ultimately, reach more people. While we count over 10,000 people in Wisconsin with intellectual disabilities as athletes, they only make up 7% of the folks with intellectual disabilities in the state.
As we have already heard from athlete Connie Lins in a My SOWI Story, “Competing gave me the discipline to attend practices rain or shine. I believe that this helped me outside of Special Olympics in my job. I have been working cleaning the Waupaca schools for more than 12 years. I also live on my own. I think it would be harder to be independent without Special Olympics in my life.” Connie’s story helps shed light on what SOWI can do for all aspects of our athlete’s lives, not just the ones related to sports. This is just one example of the types of messages we want to help share with the world through My SOWI Story.
But of course, SOWI is made up of – and impacts – far more than just athletes, which is why we are asking everyone to share their stories about SOWI! If you have a story to tell, go to www.specialolympicswisconsin.org/share-my-story/. The first story will be published September 6, so get your stories in by September 3 to be considered for the first ever “My SOWI Story!”
We look forward to reading your SOWI Stories!
