With the Special Olympics Winter Games wrapping up this weekend, its a good time to take a breath and say….wow…
Literally years of hard work went into putting together the games this week that saw 1000 athletes and 1000 volunteers come together in the true spirit of sport…what an experience for all of them.
These things don’t just happen. And these things don’t happen like this just anywhere. Thunder Bay has always been known to be able to do these kinds of events really well. We showed it again this week. The incredible amount of hard work, passion and pride that went into putting our city in the spotlight for the right reason can’t be over looked.
Last night I had a chance to say hi to Barry Streib. Barry is the the fearless leader of an entire team of leaders who put all of the moving parts together for this week. Barry is always the first to say the word team, and acknowledge his team for pulling off what they did. But as i reminded Barry last night – good teams are only good because of good leaders and he is definition of that. Barry’s passion for the community is infectious, and yes his team and the over 1000 volunteers did something amazing this week. But i just want to say on behalf of the entire community – Thank you Barry. Thank you for loving the community as much as we do and for your passion to keep doing things to make it better.
We’ve had our share of bad news in this city over the last few years, but this week proved that we are better than all of that. That we come together, work together and love our city. I hope those that traveled from coast to coast to coast to come here felt that. I think they did. The pride in the faces of the athletes and their excitement in participating and accomplishing so much to get here was remarkable. The true meaning of sport was on display this week. Congratulations to every single athlete that worked so hard to get here. Thank you to over 1000 volunteers that made every moving part of these games move so smoothly. You too have done us proud.
The success of this event and all the hard work that went in to pulling it off so well is exactly what this city needed right now. And, it’s something we should keep working at to keep our spirits high to keep our news so positive and to keep us moving forward. Thank you to all of the athletes, families, volunteers, sponsors and everyone else involved. You’ve made us all proud. And made our city a better place.
That’s just My Two Cents…. ~John
