Blog 3: Primary Artifact 1

This is a picture of me, my friends, and Chris.  Chris is an athlete on the Special Olympics team at my high school.  He qualified for State this past year for long jump.  We took this picture right after he placed first and won a gold medal for State.   I chose to use this picture as my first primary artifact because the community I am doing my documentary on is Special Olympics.  A broader issue that I will be addressing is the funding that goes towards Special Olympics.  I have decided to research this topic because I worked with Special Olympic athletes all four years of my high school career.  Through out those four years I found out that my school did not provide any funding for this recreation at all.  I see this as a problem because students with intellectual disabilities that participate in Special Olympics receive many benefits with health, education, and employment.  If Special Olympics had more funding available then I believe so many more children and adults with intellectual disabilities would be more effected in a positive way.

Blog Entry 2

The community I have chosen to make a documentary about is Special Olympics.  This is a community because it is a group of people with and without disabilities that join together to participate and compete in sporting events.  All throughout my four years of high school I helped coach my schools Special Olympics team in basketball, track, swimming, and bowling.  This summer I was able to travel with some of the players to State because of how well the school year went!  I know that it is a lot of fun to assist with coaching and volunteering but I would like to learn more about the other sides’ perspective on things and what it’s like to be an athlete or head coach.  I chose this community because of how close I became to the Special Olympic Athletes at my high school and I’m hoping to discover more ways to become more involved in volunteering with Special Olympics.

Introduction

Hi, my name is McKenzie Sanchez!  I was born in Nashville, TN and when I was 9 my family moved to Draper, UT for my dads job. Then at the age of 13 my parents decided to move my family to St. Charles, IL to be closer to our extended family.  A majority of my family lives in Wisconsin and that is where my parents grew up.  A huge coincidence about my parents is that they are both the youngest of 11 kids so I have an unlimited supply of cousins.  With both of my parents being University of Wisconsin Alumni and the rest of my family being huge Wisconsin Badger fans you can probably imagine all of their reactions when I chose UK as my new home.  My expectations for WRD110 is to improve my writing and communication skills so I can feel more comfortable speaking in front of an audience.

A community I identify myself with is my sorority, Delta Gamma.  I recently joined this community a couple weeks ago.  To be a part of a sorority girls have to go through rush week which is a process where you visit each sorority and eliminate some each day.  The point of rush week is to discover which sorority is the best match for you.  I felt like Delta Gamma was the best match for me because whenever I came to the house I didn’t feel like I had to try to be someone I’m not.