By: Yun Kang

I have been involved with Best Buddies for about 4-5 years now (since Grade 11) and have loved every experience that has come along with it. I wanted to present this wonderful opportunity of volunteerism to the first years as it not only allows you to build friendships and community, but also helps you discover who you are as an individual. If you’re up for having a blast while building friendship, continue and read along!
Best Buddies is a program that pairs students, just like you, with another student or individual in the community with an intellectual disability in order to develop friendship and community. For those of you that are not familiar with the term intellectual disability, it is a term used to describe any condition that includes a lifelong impairment to a person’s ability to learn or adapt to their environment; some examples include Autism, Down Syndrome, and William’s Syndrome.
Before I share my current experiences with Best Buddies, I would like to share a word of caution to those who are interested in embarking on this journey to friendship: you are not volunteering to ‘help them out,’ but you are actually building friendship through this program. During my first year with Best Buddies, I had not known the true values behind this program and had simply tried to be a mentor and a teacher to my buddy, rather than being friends with her. I guess I had the foolish misconception that I was ‘better off’ than my buddy was since I was not born with an intellectual or physical disability. However, what I did not know at that time was that people with disabilities, whether they be intellectual or physical, are very much like us and that they, too, simple want a buddy to hang out with. I advise you to please take caution and not approach them as if you are at a better place than they are, but simply as a person, an individual, and a friend.
Now, to share some of my personal experiences with the Best Buddies Program, I am currently paired with a beautiful girl. She has the most radiant smile that I have ever seen and she constantly reminds me that there are simple joys and wonders in life that we often forget as we grow older – she still giggles at watching flowers blossom or the sun shining through her window. I have learned over the past 6 months that she loves flowers, to dance, and to go on a stroll, and that she truly appreciates the time we spend together. I am not going to lie, there were some hard times with her, as she is unable to speak or move due to cerebral palsy; there were times where I just wanted to quit because I couldn’t communicate with her or had to watch her experience painful and frightening seizures. But, at the end of the day, I am always so glad to be able to be there for her and to truly be her friend, by trying to figure out what she wants to do for the day or what would make her happy.
I challenge you all to take part in this wonderful organization and to build friendships like no other. Sure, they will be tough at times, but you will truly learn that any good cause can only be reached by enduring hardships – not by yourself, but together.

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