By Janie B. Porter
Daily Bruin Contributor
Disneyland is much more than the happiest place on earth to
members of UCLA’s Best Buddies chapter. For them, it’s
a place where fun, learning and camaraderie intersect in a special
trip that happens once every two years.
Best Buddies, a community service organization, focuses on
pairing up college volunteers with high school students who have
developmental disabilities.
As part of a year-long friendship, volunteers are required to
contact their buddies 1-2 times per week and see their buddies at
least twice per month. Planned group events, such as the Disneyland
trip, happen about twice every quarter.
“About half of the buddies have Down syndrome,” said
Gauree Gupta, a third-year microbiology and molecular genetics
student and Best Buddies director.
Other buddies, all aged 14-18, have epilepsy, autism and other
mental and physical disabilities.
By way of planned quarterly events, Best Buddies aims to nurture
friendships between volunteers and buddies, develop the
buddies’ leadership potential, improve their social skills,
boost their self-confidence, and enhance their academic and social
skills.
One of this year’s big events was the group’s trip
to Disneyland, which Gupta said has had the buddies excited since
the school year began.
“They’ve been asking when the Disneyland trip is
since the beginning of fall quarter,” she said. “They
keep talking about what they’re going to wear, what
they’re going to eat. It’s such a blast.”
And by all accounts, the Disneyland trip was all it was cracked
up to be. After arriving at the park late Sunday morning, the
group’s first priority was obtaining special assistance
passes from City Hall on Main Street, U.S.A.
The passes were a perk of Disneyland’s Happy Hearts Day,
one in a series of three consecutive weekends aimed at welcoming
disabled individuals into the park.
After waiting in line for their passes, which gave the group
express privileges to the front of every line, the Best Buddies
strolled through the rustic, country-western themed
Frontierland.
The buddies gawked at the Mark Twain boat, which steams by
Frontierland’s harbor approximately every 15 minutes.
At 12:15 p.m., the group headed over to the Hungry Bear eatery,
where buddies and volunteers munched on hamburgers, cheeseburgers
and barbeque chicken salads.
Immediately after lunch, half of the group decided to brave
Splash Mountain.
“Half of the group went on the ride, and half of the group
stayed. Some of the kids might have been afraid of the big
drop,” said Veronica Fernandez, a volunteer who graduated
last year from UCLA.
Meeting characters was the highlight of the day for most of the
buddies.
“They enjoyed seeing the characters the most. We also
bumped into Pocahontas, Tigger, Woody from Toy Story and Snow
White,” said Eric Chou, Best Buddies volunteer and a
third-year biology student.
“They were all over the characters. They got all their
pictures taken with them,” he continued.
After riding on Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted House,
Fernandez and her buddy Francisca separated from the group to go on
a ride that Francisca had asked about all day ““ It’s a
Small World.
“She kept asking what we were going to do there. And I
would tell her that we would go into the castle and see dancing
dolls,” Fernandez said.
Fernandez wanted to take Francisca to It’s a Small World
after Francisca had shied away from most of the other rides.
“She was very afraid; she didn’t want to get on
anything.” Fernandez said.
Still, Fernandez explained that it is important to let buddies
go at their own pace.
“We always have some buddies that don’t like to get
on rides. So we just asked them if they want to go on, and if they
say no, we don’t pressure them,” she said.
Buddies for the program come from one of two schools in the
area: the Educational Resource Center in West Los Angeles and Santa
Monica High School. The buddies apply for the program in early
September, which gives Best Buddies directors time to evaluate and
categorize the buddies’ interests, strengths and
weaknesses.
Recruiting for college volunteers for the program begins during
fall quarter.
Potential volunteers must fill out an application, participate
in an interview with a group of Best Buddies directors and attend a
one-day training session.
“The things we look for are willingness to go out there
and not worry about stereotypes,” Gupta said. “It can
be really scary because you don’t know what to expect, or if
your buddy will like you.”
Although the time commitment may seem extensive, Gupta explained
that the volunteers usually benefit from their involvement in Best
Buddies just as much as their buddies.
“I usually notice a huge difference in the character of
the volunteers. A lot of our volunteers have become more
compassionate and better listeners,” she said. “I think
I’ve seen an improvement in myself, too.
“Best Buddies gives you an opportunity to just get away.
You get to go out with a friend and do things that you both enjoy
doing,” she added.
Still, the buddies benefit most from the interaction with their
college volunteers.
“They learn so much by just being in public and
communicating with the group,” Gupta said.
In addition to the learning that occurred at Disneyland, some
volunteers were encouraged by their happiness to be there.
“By the end of the day, everything that I saw ““ the
smiles on their faces ““ all added together were very
rewarding,” Chou said.