Abby and Nell – Inspiring Self-Advocates

Abby and Nell are two of our self-advocates who have been volunteering here since the opening of GiGi’s Playhouse – Twin Cities in 2013, mostly volunteering with Special Olympics Young Athletes and Team G Special Olympics Team. They have helped volunteer here consistently and enthusiastically every single week for all of these years since the opening. Now in our winter session of 2020, we had an opportunity for Abby and Nell to be program leads for the Special Olympics Young Athletes program on Saturday mornings. They made the commitment in fall 2019 to go through training to be the leaders, while working hard to plan and prepare for the winter session. The first day then arrived on January 25^th. They arrived an hour early to set everything up for the participants, as well as be ready to explain the plans to all the volunteers. They warmly welcomed every single family and volunteer to the program. Everything went so well! We were all so proud of what they both achieved on just the first day.  They both were smiling ear to ear about what had just been accomplished. Abby’s mom, Jody, had been so nervous about how everything would go down – and her heart was bursting with pride, while having a great sense of relief. We are excited to see where this leadership opportunity at GiGi’s will lead to and develop into for the future. Congratulations Abby and Nell!