Issue link: http://www.wacmagazine.com/i/105435
Here I am speaking with young girls at the JSM Trust girls school in a rural village called Shivpur in Uttar Pradesh. Most of the girls live in extreme poverty. The school, founded Jamie Van Horne and co-workers look over a SeeYourImpact project at their office in Pioneer Square. and operated by SeeYourImpact parents, is transforming the community. handicapped skiing at Winter Park Resort. When she moved to Seattle in 1986 with her husband, John, who'd been hired by Boeing, Beth took an internship at Seafair. By 1997, she was CEO of the summer event festival. Her time in the corporate offices of the Seattle Mariners and Seattle Seahawks, combined with her Seafair experience and later leadership of Teatro ZinZanni, made Beth the perfect candidate to head Special Olympics Washington. When a former boss recruited her to the position, she was elated. "It's my calling," she says. "The people that I'm working with are intellectually disabled. It's my duty, it's my honor, and it's my capacity to fight on their behalf." From her 15th-floor office downtown, Beth looks south across three blocks of the city at a perfect vista of the WAC Clubhouse. As head of Special Olympics Washington, she leads 22 employees and 8,000 volunteers. She moved the organization, which puts on events every weekend, downtown from Northgate about a year and a half ago. "Many of our donors are down here," she says. "And we have a lot of meetings downtown." For Beth, that includes meetings at the WAC and with Vice President Athletics Wayne Milner. The Club is an official partner of Special Olympics Washington, hosts an annual power lifting invitational as well as board meetings, and helps raise money through events such as Polar Plunge. The February 9 plunge at Lake Union Park in Seattle is one of eight statewide this year. Beyond raising money, Beth raises hope. She has developed relationships with many of the 10,000 Special Olympics athletes statewide. She gets excited when telling their stories. Some of her favorites involve going into schools and handing athletes their first-ever school jersey. "Figure these kids have been going to school forever, and they've never had a chance to wear the school jersey," she says. "Now all of a sudden we're going into the class and giving them a brand new school uniform." The change in self-esteem for many athletes, she says, is remarkable. "When our guys come through the hallway with their medals on, people know what it means. It really is a civil rights movement." Special Olympics works the other way, too. "I think people have an expectation that an intellectually disabled person is going to be social just like anybody else, and really they're not," Beth explains. "That's part of the deficit. And so there's a lot of giving. But you also find that intellectually disabled people really surprise you with their love and what they can achieve in all areas of their lives." Loretta Claiborne, second from left, is a Special Olympics athlete and was the guest speaker at one of our events. She knew founder Eunice Kennedy Shriver personally and spoke at her funeral. Loretta's is a story of bullying, sadness and despair lifted to hope, achievement and leadership. She spoke to more than a thousand people at our event 28 | Washington Athletic Club Magazine | FEBRUARY 2013 FEBRUARY 2013 with no notes. I cried. R o d M a R , S p e c i a l o ly M p i c S a R c h i v e board member Rajeev Singh's