Kristina Thomas watched from the sideline as her 10-year-old son, Justin, played wheelchair basketball during FGCU's Adaptive Sports Day.
"It's his day. He's lighting up. You can see the smile. It means the world to him," Thomas said.
Justin has spina bifida. He has been playing basketball and flag football for several years on teams with able-bodied kids.
Thomas says the recent event was a good opportunity for Justin to see other people in wheelchairs and with other disabilities.
"He can check out the equipment and be with kids that have, you know, unique abilities, like he does...I want him to know that there are tons of people out there that have disabilities. It doesn't make you any different, it just makes you a little bit more unique," Thomas said.
The event, which had more than 100 student volunteers from the physical and occupational therapy programs as well as nursing and exercise science, gave those with disabilities a chance to try new sports and activities such as lacrosse, tennis and waterskiing.
"There's a lot of people don't have a lot of opportunity to engage in just fun and be able to be physically active and try out sports, and this is an opportunity to give people a chance to try something before they just jump into a group where they don't know anyone. So it's a welcoming environment," said FGCU Assistant Professor Ellen Donald.
The student volunteers also learned about the challenges of wheelchair use. They learned to play tennis, lacrosse and basketball in wheelchairs. Their experiences help them better serve their future patients.
"This is the population that many of them will work with, or should work with, people with intellectual disability, often it's a certain segment of OTs and PTs that work with them when they're young. But what we're finding is that as people grow older, there's not service providers that will work with this population. So we're trying to expose students across all areas of expertise to this population," Donald said.
FGCU student Lexia Hall is a third-year physical therapy student who volunteered at the waterfront taking people kayaking. She also played wheelchair basketball with her physical therapy class last week to prepare for the event.
"By putting yourself in their shoes and being in a wheelchair while trying to play basketball. That's really difficult, more so than some people would even imagine, so being able to kind of step into what their life is like, you can better do the treatment or interventions or kind of help them find the right path," Hall said.
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