Best Buddies, a social club that fosters community between students and their peers with intellectual and developmental disabilities, hosted its monthly social at the UREC on April 23. The group enjoyed a variety of games, including air hockey, pool, e-sports and arcade games in lieu of a pool party that had to be canceled due to the weather.
“It’s kind of just a friendship club where we’re fostering friendships between students and people with intellectual and developmental disabilities,” Paris Ally, sophomore coastal environmental science major and president of Best Buddies, said. “We’re just trying to be another outsource on campus for them.”
The club facilitates these friendships in many ways. A peer buddy can spend time with a student who has IDD one-on-one or hanging out in a group setting, forming a genuine friendship. Students can also get involved by becoming an associate buddy and spending time with other members in a group setting.
Best Buddies is an international organization dedicated to building up these friendships. This program is all over the world and has locations in all 50 states, and it has clubs in schools ranging from elementary to college level.
The club holds a social event every month, and it has been preparing for its Kickball Kickoff, a fundraiser in collaboration with Baton Rouge Citizens and Tulane University. The event will have fun activities like face painting, plus guest appearances by Saints football player Kyle Hergel and LSU football player Phillip Wright III.
“So just a way to promote Best Buddies, have a fun little game and then fundraise so people can do donations,” Ally said.
This club, like many others, took a big hit during the pandemic and is only just now recovering with its first full year back.
“So I’ve been working since my freshman year, trying to start the club back up,” Ally said. “I think a hard part of it is really getting that word out there, because LSU is such a big campus that, although you think there’s people all around you, it’s for some reason very hard to spread the word.”
The club also battles many other challenges and misconceptions. For example, many people assume that only students with disabilities can join Best Buddies, when in reality the club is open to all. Additionally, the club runs on tight funds due to its small size, but Ally hopes to gain more members and host more fundraisers in a year’s time.
Liv Tees, a senior journalism major and vice president of Best Buddies, finds her experiences in the club to be more than rewarding despite the challenges.
“I love really just hanging out with all of the kids,” Tees said. “I mean, they’re just regular college students. They just have an intellectual disability, but they want to have fun, they want to make jokes, they want to watch sports. For me, it’s really rewarding to kind of facilitate that between a bunch of the college students and kind of grow those friendships.”
More information about Best Buddies and updates about upcoming events can be found on the club’s Instagram @lsu_bb.
