Dear Special Olympics Massachusetts Family,

Happy Spring and welcome to the first edition of the Special Olympics Massachusetts Families eNewsletter. Our hope is this eNewsletter will provide you with information regarding the happenings of Special Olympics Massachusetts as well as a link to a myriad of resources that we hope will be beneficial to you. Special Olympics Massachusetts relies heavily on our coaches and our volunteers to pass on critical information to our families. We want this eNewsletter to be a vehicle that helps transmit seasonal and other critical information.

Special Olympics Massachusetts accomplished a lot in 2015. The athlete base continues to grow and we now serve 11,895 athletes throughout the Commonwealth in 24 sports and 245 competition opportunities. Our youngest athlete is 2 ½ and our oldest athlete is 104! Yes, you read that right, 104 and I had the awesome opportunity to watch him compete in candlepin bowling in March. As we move into 2016 and beyond, our goal at Special Olympics Massachusetts is to ensure we offer a continuum of service from Young Athletes programming, to inclusive and traditional opportunities at every school level, to transitional opportunities for athletes graduating from school and finally to ensuring we are able to provide sports for our most senior athletes. To achieve this goal, we must recruit and retain more human and monetary resources. We want to ensure Special Olympics Massachusetts is a partner to your family and your athlete for as long as they need or want us to be.

We welcome your feedback and please forward this eNewsletter to anyone who you think would be interested in receiving but may not be. To those families who volunteer or donate regularly, THANK YOU. We look forward to continuing to work with you to build the great mission of Special Olympics Massachusetts.

In the Spirit of Special Olympics,

Mary Beth McMahon

President & CEO

Marybeth.McMahon@SpecialOlympicsMA.org