Best Buddies seeks to pair up long-lasting friendships
When Matt Stehl, Pennsylvania State Director of Best Buddies International, was younger, he used to play basketball, hockey and baseball with his parents’ friend’s foster child, who had an intellectual disability. The two were similar in age, and Stehl recalls the smiles on his friend’s face when he would score in hockey.
As a result, years later Stehl became involved with Best Buddies, an organization that pairs a person with a developmental or intellectual disability with a volunteer without a disability. With the organization for the past two years, he’s quick to say that he has the best job in the world.
Around nationally for 20 years, Best Buddies arrived in Pennsylvania in 1994; after schools in the Lehigh Valley were interested in starting a chapter. Best Buddies’ main office is in Philadelphia, and along with a satellite office in Pittsburgh, the two manage 52 chapters in schools across the state, including three in Delaware County: Archbishop John Carroll High School, Haverford High School and Villanova University.
At the middle school and high school chapters, a student with a disability is paired up with a volunteer, and is matched into a school-year-long friendship. Once they’re matched, they’re required to contact each other once a week, and go out socially twice a month.
“The real key to our program is that everyone is paired-off one-to-one, and in the middle and high school level, they are paired with someone their same age,” Stehl said.
At the college level, volunteers are paired with adults in the community who have developmental or intellectual disabilities, and usually work with a host site, like an art or community center. At each level, the volunteer is given training about what to expect while in the program.
Of course, the length of the friendship varies. It could last a school year, a school career or even longer. One student volunteering in the Best Buddies program in the Gwynedd Mercy College Chapter had the same buddy for three years. After he graduated, he invited his buddy to be part of his wedding party.
Ultimately, that’s what Stehl said he would like to see — lifelong friendships — but he adds that the organization doesn’t keep track of the status of the buddies once they leave the program.
“We kind of hear these stories of friendship,” Stehl said. “They’re incredible. And seeing pictures of that wedding was pretty cool.”
Funded through private donations, corporations and government funding, the nonprofit organization helps about 18,000 Pennsylvanians annually, and is looking to bring in $20,000, about five percent of its budget, at its inaugural Fairways to Friendship Golf Tournament at the Golf Course at Glen Mills.
Registration for the tournament begins at 7 a.m. at 185 Glen Mills Road, Glen Mills, followed by a shotgun start at 8 a.m. Cost is $150 per golfer, and Best Buddies is seeking sponsors.
At the end of the tournament, a helicopter will drop 500 individually labeled balls, purchased for $20 each, from 100 feet above the 18th green. The closest ball to the pin wins $1,000. Also, one person will win the opportunity to shoot a hole-in-one from 175 yards away. If done successfully, he or she will win $1 million.
And it’s all in the name of buddy-ship.
For more information on the Best Buddies program, or the golf tournament, call 215-569-0069; visit www.bestbuddiespennsylvania.org; or e-mail Matt Stehl at MatthewStehl@bestbuddies.org.
As a result, years later Stehl became involved with Best Buddies, an organization that pairs a person with a developmental or intellectual disability with a volunteer without a disability. With the organization for the past two years, he’s quick to say that he has the best job in the world.
Around nationally for 20 years, Best Buddies arrived in Pennsylvania in 1994; after schools in the Lehigh Valley were interested in starting a chapter. Best Buddies’ main office is in Philadelphia, and along with a satellite office in Pittsburgh, the two manage 52 chapters in schools across the state, including three in Delaware County: Archbishop John Carroll High School, Haverford High School and Villanova University.
At the middle school and high school chapters, a student with a disability is paired up with a volunteer, and is matched into a school-year-long friendship. Once they’re matched, they’re required to contact each other once a week, and go out socially twice a month.
“The real key to our program is that everyone is paired-off one-to-one, and in the middle and high school level, they are paired with someone their same age,” Stehl said.
At the college level, volunteers are paired with adults in the community who have developmental or intellectual disabilities, and usually work with a host site, like an art or community center. At each level, the volunteer is given training about what to expect while in the program.
Of course, the length of the friendship varies. It could last a school year, a school career or even longer. One student volunteering in the Best Buddies program in the Gwynedd Mercy College Chapter had the same buddy for three years. After he graduated, he invited his buddy to be part of his wedding party.
Ultimately, that’s what Stehl said he would like to see — lifelong friendships — but he adds that the organization doesn’t keep track of the status of the buddies once they leave the program.
“We kind of hear these stories of friendship,” Stehl said. “They’re incredible. And seeing pictures of that wedding was pretty cool.”
Funded through private donations, corporations and government funding, the nonprofit organization helps about 18,000 Pennsylvanians annually, and is looking to bring in $20,000, about five percent of its budget, at its inaugural Fairways to Friendship Golf Tournament at the Golf Course at Glen Mills.
Registration for the tournament begins at 7 a.m. at 185 Glen Mills Road, Glen Mills, followed by a shotgun start at 8 a.m. Cost is $150 per golfer, and Best Buddies is seeking sponsors.
At the end of the tournament, a helicopter will drop 500 individually labeled balls, purchased for $20 each, from 100 feet above the 18th green. The closest ball to the pin wins $1,000. Also, one person will win the opportunity to shoot a hole-in-one from 175 yards away. If done successfully, he or she will win $1 million.
And it’s all in the name of buddy-ship.
For more information on the Best Buddies program, or the golf tournament, call 215-569-0069; visit www.bestbuddiespennsylvania.org; or e-mail Matt Stehl at MatthewStehl@bestbuddies.org.
