Way too often children and adults with intellectual disabilities are overlooked, marginalized and isolated in our communities. A lot of people pay lip service to people with special needs but that doesn’t change a thing. It’s time to do more than talk.

As you may know Special Olympics provides an opportunity for children as young as 2 to participate in a variety of sports and developmental programs but you may not know that Special O also provides health screenings for our athletes, which have proven to literally be a life saver in some instances.

Just as importantly, for many of our athletes Special Olympics provides the only connection to the community at large.  It’s where they make friends. As one of our athletes said, “before I joined Special Olympics I didn’t know there were other people like me.”

I think it’s safe to say that for the vast majority of our athletes our programs end their isolation, build their self-esteem and have a profound impact on the quality of their lives and their families.

This is where you come in.

I am chairman of Special O’s biggest fundraiser of the year – The Newmont/Goldcorp Invitational Golf Tournament. In fact, it’s one of only two public fundraisers and hence is extremely important in enabling Special O’s programs to be available free of charge.  Obviously not everyone can participate in the golf tournament but we can all help by supporting bidding in our online auction.

It runs for only a week and closes the Thursday, June 20^th.  You can bid right through the evening when the auction closes.  Not really different than if you were there, except you won’t have to hear me being a lame auctioneer.

Here are some sample auction items  …

• Bose Quiet Control 30 wireless headphones
• 100 Troy Ounce, .999 fine silver bar
• Tofino storm watching getaway for 2
• One week in a two-bedroom guest house in Scottsdale
• Three bottle selection of classic Italian wine

Warning: you will be bidding against me on lots of these items – why? Because Special O athletes and their families deserve our support.

Just click here to go to the auction.

Newmontgoldcorpauction.com

Thanks for reading this – and I hope you can find the time to help out.  Just bid anytime – day or night right through the auction on June 20^th (ending about 7:30 PDT)

Happy bidding.

Mike