#ImAGameChanger - Mary Ward Lupinacci

January 31, 2018 Rachel McQuiston

BY: USA GAMES CORRESPONDENT, MIKE GASTINEAU

Most people who have ever taken a yoga class would agree that the completion of a good, long session of down-dogging, tree posing, and “ommmm”-ing is good for the body, mind, and soul.

Count Mary Ward Lupinacci in that group. Lupinacci is a teacher, counselor, and yoga instructor. As she taught, counseled, and instructed people in the finer points of yoga, she reached a point where she realized that some of the things that yoga and mindfulness impart on people might be particularly valuable for kids with intellectual disabilities or simply kids who were facing challenges in certain areas of their lives.

From that realization, Be Still Kids was born. Be Still Kids is a Spokane, Washington based program that aims to make all kids healthier and help them use yoga to develop the skills and discipline necessary to take on the not always simple task of being a kid.

“She thought it made sense to have a place where kids could do that with other kids without the isolation and separating out that can tend to happen when we have programs that differentiate,” said her husband John Lupinacci. “She wanted to find a way to have yoga and mindfulness as a day-to-day practice contribute to what inclusion means in a community.”

#ImAGameChanger - Anna Angrisano

January 24, 2018 Rachel McQuiston

BY: USA GAMES CORRESPONDENT, MIKE GASTINEAU

What if someone with an intellectual disability had their game changed to the point that they were able to change the game for others? Stay with me.

Anna Angrisano is developmentally delayed and has epilepsy and cerebral palsy. In 2005, she got a job at the Lake Hills Library in Bellevue, Washington, as a page assistant. She took advantage of a program offered by the King County Library System (KCLS) that created the page assistant job as a way to be inclusive of people with intellectual disabilities in their hiring procedures.

#ImAGameChanger - Will Larson

January 17, 2018 Rachel McQuiston

BY: USA GAMES CORRESPONDENT, MIKE GASTINEAU

Will Larson’s senior year of high school had just been turned sideways.

The Orono, Minnesota resident had been playing hockey on a Saturday morning when his skate gave out and he slid into the dasher board, breaking his leg in two places in the process.

There’s no doubt that he had plenty on his mind as he was loaded into an ambulance for a trip to the hospital where he would undergo surgery on his leg later that day. But at the top of his suddenly updated to-do list was making sure someone got ahold of Sam Geffre.

Sam is a 10th grader at Orono High School and he and Larson had become friends through the school’s Unified sports program. Geffre had been quite reluctant to get involved in the program at first, but with Larson’s encouragement, he gradually got interested. He began playing on the school’s flag football team and he and Will were partners on the school’s Unified bowling team. Larson also encouraged Sam to get involved in other activities and one of those was committing to attending the homecoming dance. Sam agreed and Will planned on giving him a ride to the dance.

#ImAGameChanger - Macho Madness

January 10, 2018 Rachel McQuiston

BY: USA GAMES CORRESPONDENT, MIKE GASTINEAU

Imagine you belong to a group of a couple dozen people who work out together at a gym at a pre-dawn early morning hour before you go to work. For the parents in the group, it has become a small slice of the day where they can focus on themselves and not their kids.

Over time, your group becomes close-knit. They’ve nicknamed themselves “Macho Madness” and in addition to helping everyone physically, the sessions build camaraderie.

Then, one day, one of your fellow early bird workout fiends surprises everyone when he brings his 10-year-old daughter to the gym. How would you react?

Dr. Ross McDaniel is a chiropractor in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. His daughter Kaylor has Smith Magenis Syndrome (SMS) which is a developmental disorder that affects many parts of the body. Among the symptoms Kaylor has is a reverse melatonin cycle. This means she’s tired in the afternoon and wide awake in the middle of the night. This can make the simple act of doing things with her a little problematic.