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Laura Mandell, FunFitness volunteer screener
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Volunteering at the 2003 Special Olympics World Summer Games “has completely altered my perception of everything I do and everything I am involved with,” said Laura Mandell. “It’s funny, it has helped me prioritize what’s important and what is not in life.
The women’s volleyball coach from Clarkson University, a trained physical therapist, volunteered with one of the components of the Special Olympics Healthy Athletes initiative, FunFitness. She and her fellow PTs screened more than 1,400 athletes.
“The most important thing I learned is that a smile and a kind word can mean the most to an individual,” said Mandell. “During our screening we interacted with athletes from over 160 countries who spoke many different languages. By about day two we could perform the entire screen just using hand signals and a smile! We laughed so much during our experience — that’s one thing I will always treasure.
"These athletes have a certain innocence and purity to them that is so genuine it's magical... they are there simply for the love of the sport and their desire to compete and succeed. A lot of professional and collegiate athletes could learn some great life lessons from these amazing individuals. The smiles and hugs that we received from athletes, coaches, friends and family of these athletes are priceless, and cannot be appropriately expressed unless they are experienced,” she said.
“I personally have no doubt in my mind that I will be involved in some facet of this organization for the rest of my life... I have already signed up to volunteer at the 2005 winter games in Nagano and can't wait for that experience," Mandell said. "I am also actively working to become involved with the local St. Lawrence County chapter in a coaching role."
Mandell has many great memories of the World Games. Walking to the RDS complex, where the Healthy Athletes screenings took place, she approached a team from Special Olympics Germany walking the other way. “The scene was absolutely picturesque, there were beams of sunlight filtering through the trees lining the sidewalk and shining brightly off of their green and yellow warm-up suits. They were all smiles, and as they approached, I heard this distinctive ‘clink-clink-clink’ sound at uneven intervals. That was the sound of only one thing... the athletes’ medals clinking on one another as they walked proudly towards me. Many athletes had many medals [around their neck], but one girl walked towards me without a medal. You could see her joy for her team, but she seemed a bit crestfallen that she didn’t have [a medal] of her own. As we approached each other, one of her male teammates took a gold medal from his neck and placed it upon hers,” Mandell reminisced. “This all occurred within about 20 seconds, but this memory truly personifies the spirit of the Games, and will stay with me for a lifetime."
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