Program areas at Special Olympics New York
Games and competitions: sony provided training and competition sport seasons (winter, summer, and fall albeit truncated by the covid pandemic). The individuals served by sony range in age from 2 years to 90 years and have been diagnosed with an intellectual disability or a cognitive delay. Competitions are held in nine regions around the state and athletes advance from local competition to regional, super-regional, and statewide competitions in each of the three seasons with potential advancement to national and world games available in all 23 sports. Sony hosted 102 competitive events for a total of 92,800 regional service hours, 2,552 state games service hours, and 1,892,379 public school service hours in the 2021 program year. Again, all activity was curtailed during 2021 due to the ongoing pandemic.
Athlete and coach's education and health services: the sony 'healthyathletes' program offered 183 health screenings that provided themwith the opportunity to meet with health professionals across multipledisciplines including: hearing, dental, optometry, nutrition,occupational therapy, podiatry, fitness, nutrition and physical therapyfor the purpose of evaluation and consultation. Sony offered an'athlete leadership' program for athletes who are gaining skills aspublic speakers by sharing our Special Olympics movement through publicoutlets. Sony engages a total of 12,037 volunteers; 3,789 who areformally certified as coaches. In 2021, sony held 80 volunteertraining sessions for a total of 6,734 training hours. All certified personnel receive a general orientation, a background check, and specialized protective behavior training. Each certified volunteer is recertified every 3 years. All statistics are significantly lower than prior years due to the pandemic.
Athletes training: sony athletes train with coaches and certified volunteers for a total of 603,588 service hours. Sony provided service to athletes across multiple initiatives. Athletes were trained and educated in the following traditional sports during 2020 (all in athlete numbers): alpine skiing - 163; athletics (track & field) 5,795; basketball 4,381; bocce - 130; bowling - 712; cross country skiing - 77; cycling - 69; distance running - 65; equestrian - 12; figure skating - 48; floor hockey 1,640; soccer - 721; golf - 71; gymnastics - 46; matp - 429; power lifting - 20; snow boarding - 12; snow shoeing - 530; softball - 278; swimming - 129; tennis - 87; volleyball - 284; young athletes 1190; project unify athletes 3,480, partners 3,404. Again, all statistics are significantly lower than prior years due to the pandemic.