For 200 million people in the world with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), community can be hard to find and establish.
With the help of Best Buddies International, a nonprofit organization dedicated to gathering volunteers and support for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, friendships and a sense of belonging are much more accessible.
While it’s an international organization, Best Buddies is also making an impact in Northeast Ohio and at Kent State University.
“I think that working with a global organization helps network people who have the same interests and skill levels as I do, and helps people understand IDD,” said Jack Marcovsky, an executive board member of the Kent State Best Buddies chapter who has intellectual and developmental disabilities.
Marcovsky is a senior music major who has been involved with the group for the past year and a half.
A focus for the organization is one-to-one friendship pairings, in which members with intellectual and developmental disabilities are matched with members without intellectual and developmental disabilities.
“You try your very best to find a tight-knit group of people but try to talk to anyone. Put yourself out there. At Best Buddies it means the same thing. You have to find your path and meet new people,” Marcovsky said when asked what community at Kent State means to him.
Kent State Today also interviewed Lauren Hand, a senior honors student with a fashion merchandising major and a minor in textiles, who serves as the Kent State Best Buddies president.
“I got involved with a gymnastics team that had athletes with IDD when I was 6, and then I stayed involved with the community,” Hand said of when she first got involved with Best Buddies. “Coming to Kent State, it was important to me that my university had a Best Buddies chapter because I knew I was going to stay involved in it.”
As a group, Best Buddies meets once a month, but it also holds pop-up events off campus.
These pop-up events can include movie outings and coffee meetups, but the highlight event is usually the annual Friendship Walk.
“I really love the Friendship Walk,” Hand said. “They’ve been doing it at the Cleveland Zoo recently, so getting to see the animals is super fun. Then getting to meet with people from chapters all across Northeast Ohio is always a really great time.”
Another networking event with other chapters is the Best Buddies Leadership Conference, which Hand has attended near her hometown in Indiana for the past two years.
“Getting to go and experience that global group of people who are all so passionate about inclusion and being able to bring some of that passion back and really try to light the fire is magical,” Hand said of her experiences attending the conference. “Being able to be a part of that group is amazing and is just so inspiring.”
Follow along with “Club Hopping” as the university covers more student organizations on Kent State’s social media channels and Kent State Today.
