Disabled connect with Best Buddies

Junior Molly Beiting and her Best Buddy, a woman who has limited verbal skills and uses a wheelchair, hang out once a week, getting their nails done and making jewelry.
The leadership conference for Best Buddies – an organization that matches volunteers with people who have disabilities – will be at IU with representatives from all across the world, including 91 representatives from Indiana.

Beiting, the IU chapter president, is one of 1,400 people involved in Best Buddies across the globe. High school and college representatives will be in Bloomington next week, including students from Europe, South America, Russia and New Zealand.

“Before I started hanging out with her, she said nobody had called her besides her family,” Beiting said of her Best Buddy. “It’s really helped her to have a friend who wants to hang out with her and isn’t getting paid for it.”

The president of each chapter will attend the four-day conference and learn how to better run their university or high school’s program. This year, IU’s chapter, for the first time, has enough funds to allow one of its Best Buddies to come.

“IU is kind of a middle ground for everyone,” said Megan Zimroth, who works on planning the conference. “It’s really reassuring to come back and see the same faces every year. It’s kind of like our extended IU family.”

Throughout the year, each chapter president is in charge of organizing monthly activities for members and buddies.

“We teach them about various disability topics, how to recruit volunteers and how to fill out paperwork,” said Sarah Baldini, Indiana state director of Best Buddies. “We have tracking devices to make sure people are meeting with their buddies throughout the year.”

At the conference, chapters can submit items for awards, and recognition will be given to outstanding chapters.

There will also be 50 participants with disabilities who will go through exercises to prepare them to make a speech at the end of the four days.

“I heard everyone that goes gets a better idea of what it’s like to be a Best Buddy,” said Beiting, who will be attending the conference for the first time. “I think it’s important because it gives you a greater awareness of the group as a whole and how to change the perspective of people with disabilities.”

In Indiana, Notre Dame has one of the largest programs, with 103 members last year. The chapters range in size, with 65 members in the IU chapter last year.

For the past two years, the Indiana headquarters in Indianapolis has received a grant from the state to work on the high school program.

“It’s allowed us to reach out to new schools,” Baldini said. “We have a lot of students who were in Best Buddies in high school and they tell us where they are going to college, and we put them in touch right away.”

The IU chapter has grown through fundraising, and it received a $5,000 grant from the IU Student Foundation last year. If students want to get involved, there will be a callout meeting in the fall and a booth at the Student Activities Fair during Welcome Week.

“We’d like it to be a household name like Big Brothers Big Sisters,” Beiting said.