SOMT athlete Patrick Yerman on prepping for the World Games.
When we hear good news at Murdoch’s, we have a tendency to want to share it.
Lately, we’ve been hearing a lot of good stuff from our friends at Special Olympics of Montana. It’s such a fun time of year for this organization, and a fun time to be involved with it. Here are 10 Good Things Happening at Special Olympics Montana (SOMT) that will brighten your day. It’s an amazing cause doing amazing work for even more amazing people!
- Check out this amazing ESPN video about SOMT athlete Patrick Yerman. Patrick is legally blind, partially deaf, autistic, and heading to the World Games. As we all know, life is simpler when you plow around the stump—but that’s not Patrick’s way: he goes right through it.
- Last year, over 4,000 generous volunteers donated 474,000 hours to support SOMT athletes. If they’d been paid only minimum wage, their work would have cost SOMT $3,815,700.
- Nearly 2,400 athletes participated in SOMT athletic competitions last year!
- SOMT athletes say they’re proud to pay taxes and vote! Nationally, 44% of people with intellectual disabilities who have participated in Special Olympics work, while only 28% of those who have never participated do.
- Some people follow wagon tracks, while others break new trails. At SOMT, they’re breaking trails with a collaborative pilot project on the Flathead Reservation with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, funded by $250,000 from the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust and $50,000 from Terry and Patt Payne!
- SOMT is now offering 6 regional bowling tournaments as a way to connect with more athletes. At the 1st tournament, in Billings, they hoped 100 athletes might show up. Over 230 did!
- SOMT school-based Unified Strategies, now in its 7th year, is a program that just keeps getting better. 47 schools statewide are creating friendly, inclusive communities through Unified Sports and rallies to end the use of the R-word and other bad habits that negatively affect people with disabilities.
- As John Wayne said, “Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway.” That’s how 6 Montana athletes and 1 Unified Partner may have felt, at least momentarily, at the 2015 World Summer Games in Los Angeles, attended by 6,500 athletes from 165 nations who competed in 25 sports!
- Here’s an announcement from SOMT’s beloved longtime CEO Bob Norbie, an old-timer who’s had a lot of interesting experiences… some of them true (this one is!): The 2015 Chevy Truck Raffle brought in a record-breaking $550,000, with nearly 110,000 tickets sold! Murdoch’s sold 7,834 of those tickets!
- We owe SOMT a big thank you for letting Murdoch’s be a part of your success! Under the direction of John Parkes (Murdoch’s Vice President and Chief People Officer) Murdoch’s team members raised $12,069 at the President’s Day Plunge in Bozeman, $1,640 at the Sweetheart Passion Plunge in Helena, $550 at the Penguin Plunge in Whitefish and $1,675 at the Pintler Plunge in Anaconda. It was a total of $15,934 with company matching dollars to boot.
