So all can get into the game
Participants also learn at school fundraiser for WDSRA
The idea started two years ago.
SS Peter and Paul School assistant volleyball coach Sharon Gedvilas frequently wore a WDSRA T-shirt to the eighth-grade boys practices.
(Danielle Gardner/Staff photographer)
PHOTO GALLERY
• Wheelchair hoops
WDSRA will join with NEDSRA (Northeast DuPage Special Recreation Association) in hosting a Paralympics Experience on Nov. 22. The event is tentatively scheduled to take place at Waubonsie Valley High School and will run approximately four hours. Basketball will be one of three or four sports offered.
One day, head coach Mary Ellen Whelan inquired about the organization Gedvilas supported and found out it was the Western DuPage Special Recreation Association. Whelan's husband is wheelchair bound, so the cause immediately drew her interest.
Gedvilas is the superintendent of finance and personnel for WDSRA and has kids at SS Peter and Paul. The circumstances jelled perfectly.
And so an idea was born. SS Peter and Paul, in conjunction with WDSRA, hosted its third annual volleyball fundraiser Tuesday at the Naperville school.
"We decided on it on a Sunday and hosted it on a Monday," Gedvilas recalled of the inaugural fundraiser. "The tough part was getting the gym. This time of the year is difficult because volleyball is still going on."
The event pitted the two eighth-grade teams of each gender, sandwiched around an enlightening wheelchair basketball demonstration.
"It was hard but it was fun," Claire Erlenbern said. "It's something new because you couldn't use your legs at all."
Fellow eighth-grader Anthony Gedvilas had similar thoughts.
"It's harder than I thought it would be," he said.
WDSRA athletics coordinator Amie Chrisman spoke briefly about adapted sports before the demonstration.
"Just getting to see guys who wouldn't get to play sports get to play sports is so rewarding," Chrisman, who has worked for WDSRA, said.
Seventeen-year-old Benet student Tyler Gedvilas attended the fundraiser and has experience as an assistant volleyball coach for Special Olympics athletes. Giving back rewards him, too.
"It's one of the best feelings I think anyone can have," he said.
The A2 girls earned bragging rights with their 25-20, 16-25, 15-12 win over the A2 boys. In the night's second match, the A1 boys defeated the A1 girls 25-15, 26-24.
Both matches provided plenty of excitement and fun and participants had fun trying wheelchair basketball, but the evening's main purposes were raising awareness of WDSRA and raising money for the program.
Event organizers raised just over $500 from the $2 admission fee. SS. Peter and Paul's athletic association will match that total.
Athletes also pay to play in the volleyball matches. Gedvilas said the event raised $1,200 last year.
"The main thing we want to do is promote awareness," she said.
For adapted sports coordinator Kevin Hosea, WDSRA's mission is very personal. He started working for the organization in June and is a Cincinnati native who has participated in adapted sports most of his life.
At 24, Hosea teaches kids and adults the wheelchair basketball fundamentals.
"It helps since I can relate to what they're going through," he said by phone Oct. 28. "I've been there."
