Together, Trent University Excalibur athletes and Special Olympics Ontario welcomed over 150 local youth to the Trent Athletics Centre on January 27 for a fun-filled day of sporting events. The PAHL Sports Festival is designed to introduce members of our local school community to Special Olympics programming. Throughout the festival students actively participated by exploring a wide-range of skills and techniques associated with different sports.

Event organizers were pleased to see the amount of interest and participation from the local community. “This was the first event we’ve run in Peterborough. We expected between 60-70 participants,” said Josh Budish, event coordinator and program developer with Special Olympics Ontario. “We were very excited when the calls and registrations kept coming in, topping to over 150 participants. We knew we had a strong community in Peterborough, but this has been fantastic.”

As for the Trent Excalibur athletes who helped to run this event by volunteering their time, they were happy to have the chance to give back and engage with the greater community. Alex Bridal, athlete development coordinator with the department of Athletics & Recreation at Trent, was very happy with the overall success of the event. “With many of our varsity sports wrapped up for the year, this was an opportunity to keep our varsity athletes engaged with the Peterborough community…and in the end I am not sure who had more fun; our varsity athletes or the youth from the local schools.”

Following the event, Mr. Bridal and Mr. Budish were pleased to express their mutual interest in further building the relationship between the Trent Excalibur and the Special Olympics in the future.