Special Olympics Illinois (SOILL)

2022 region events:in 2022, activities made a strong recovery back to pre-covid participation. Regions offered 116 competitions in 19 sports with 20,082 participations. Esports programming continued to expand with the addition of activities featured at state and region events to introduced options to more participants. Regions served 1719 young athletes and peer partners via 35 in-person culminating events. Healthy athlete activities were reintroduced at the region level.

2022 state events :in 2022, all 13 state tournaments were offered resulting in 5148 athlete, 104 unified partner and 2009 coach participations. Healthy habit activities were reintroduced at state events. Unified bags and unified community bowling were introduced at emerging sports. Participation numbers have not yet fully recovered to pre-covid levels but significant increases were made from 2021 to 2022.

Unified champion schools:in 2022 unified champion schools served over 300 schools providing programming opportunities in 3 component areas including unified sports, youth leadership and whole school engagement. Throughout the year we saw the results of two successful state-wide digital engagement events: the hybrid youth activation summit and the end of the playvs unified esports leagues. Unified sports competitions were hosted on various levels for dance, bass fishing, esports, basketball, soccer and track and field. College initiatives and involvement has increased and the growth of the college inclusion council has made a huge impact. Youth activation and youth leadership opportunities across the state have continued to develop and professional development has been offered on all levels. Two very successful school wide / community wide campaigns were offered with respect week and national inclusive schools week.