News Archives - 2003

A "Sports Extravaganza" was recently held at Augsburg College on November 12. It was a one-day event set-aside for mentally and physically disabled children in the Minneapolis/St. Paul school districts to come together and play games. The site of the event was the Augsburg dome facility. For four years Augsburg students from the health and physical education department have been on hand to assist the children in their day of activities.

Mary Jo (Evans) Norine, Auggie grad of 1978, is one of the coordinators of the event. Norine is an adaptive physical education teacher for three schools in Bloomington, where she has taught for 19 years. "We are just pleased with it, [the "Sports Extravaganza"]," said Norine. "This is a great opportunity for our students and the Augsburg students are great."

The other coordinator of the event is Carol Enke, who is a health and physical education teacher at the college. Enke and Nancy Rud Gordon started the event in the fall of 1999 when Rud Gordon had asked Enke about renting out the dome as a site for a play-day for disable children. Enke took this idea to the next level and looked at the situation as a learning experience for her classes. This gave her Augsburg students a chance to be exposed to children with disabilities through a learning aspect. Enke took care of reserving the dome space and the activities and Rud Gordon organized the registration of the children who attended.

About 200 children were present at this year's event, compared to the 150 that were in attendance the first year. All of the children were given an opportunity to express themselves through eight different stations of activities, which included: the parachute, cageball, soccer, beach ball volleyball, races/relays, jump rope, clean out your backyard, and dance. The "Sports Extravaganza" has been a great way for Augsburg students to interact with mentally and physically disabled children through their education studies. Augsburg hopes to continue on with the event and looks forward to assisting these children in the future.