By Chris Bavender
For two Hamilton County teens their involvement on the local sports level led to national honors recently at the Special Olympics National Youth Summit.
Mitch Bonar and Abby Abel- both high school seniors – Bonar attends Noblesville High School while Abel is at Carmel High School – met through the Champions Together program. The Partnership between the IHSAA and Special Olympics Indiana started in December 2012.
Bonar – who is a Special Olympics athlete – and Abel – a women’s basketball player – gathered with others with and without intellectual disabilities at the June summit in New Jersey to work to develop leadership skills and discuss ways to ”broaden and enhance Special Olympics and the movement for acceptance and equality for all students.” At the summit, they were chosen to serve on the National Youth Activation Committee (YAC) for Special Olympics.
“The committee is highly selective with only 21 members from 14 state stretching from South Carolina to Hawaii,” said Lee Lonzo of the IHSAA.”Mitch and Abby were two of only six selected nationwide for the new ‘class’ of members. They were also the first ever selected from Indiana.”
Lonzo said as members of the committee, Bona and Abel will not only be able to “share the successes from Indiana with similar groups from other states, but will also be able to learn about successes from other states and bring those ideas back to Indiana.”
“I was incredibly excited and wanted to share the news with anyone I could,” Bonar said. “I told my family members and all of my friends. I am the manager on my football team and told all my football buddies and they all gave me huge hugs and high fives! This is an experience only those who have been pushed aside when it comes to athletics can relate to.”
Abel said it’s a “great honor to share this with Mitch.”
“Both Mitch and I have become amazing friends, and I am so excited for us to share our Champions Together and Unified Track experiences on a national platform,” she said. “I am looking forward to telling others how successful this has become in Indiana –and how students with and without disabilities can truly play sports together.”
Now the teens plan to work on expanding the Champions Together program by recruiting more students at more schools to become involved.
“They have set very specific goals as to what they hope to accomplish in each of the ‘pillar’ areas of the program,” Lonzo said.
