Mercer Island’s unified cheer team, a cheerleading group consisting of students with special needs, loves getting up and performing for a crowd, be it in front of a packed gymnasium for a school assembly or at halftime of a varsity basketball game.
At the end of this month, the unified cheerleaders will get the opportunity to do what they love at an international event in front of a global audience.
Eleven Mercer Island unified cheerleaders will perform at the 2015 Special Olympics World Summer Games in Los Angeles, cheering on athletes from around the globe. The games will take place July 25-Aug. 2 and will be televised on ESPN, kicking off with the opening ceremony that will see the team march in alongside performances from Stevie Wonder, Cody Simpson and Avril Lavigne. It will mark the first time unified cheer teams have been invited to participate.
Unified cheer coach Traci Brandon said the group, officially named the Pacific Northwest Unified Cheer team, will consist of four special-needs cheerleaders and seven mentors.
“It’s too big of an opportunity for the special needs kids to pass up,” Brandon said. “For them to really shine and be on the world stage, we just felt that a lot of the kids [on Mercer Island] have a lot of opportunities to travel and do things that are pretty spectacular that these kids don’t. And to be part of that and be celebrated for a week is just awesome.
“This is a big deal, for these kids to be part of it is amazing.”
Brandon said she was contacted by the Special Olympics in late March with an invitation for the unified cheer team to participate. They were discovered through the MIHS cheer program’s partnership with the Sparkle Effect Foundation, which works to bring together students with and without disabilities in school cheerleading and dance programs across the country. Mercer Island’s Sparkle Squad was featured on Q13 Fox News last year.
“We had to jump on this, we had about three weeks to decide,” Brandon said. “Within a couple weeks, we just decided, ‘Let’s do this.’”
While the team is comprised of Mercer Island High School cheerleaders, it isn’t representing MIHS at the summer games due to fundraising and other logistic technicalities.
The team is currently fundraising toward its goal of $15,000, which Brandon said would help cover travel and lodging costs, including having to rent a private home to meet the needs of some of the students on the trip. The team set up an online fundraising page through GoFundMe, has been selling doughnuts at soccer games and will host a yard sale near Homestead Park on July 18. Brandon said fundraising efforts would likely continue through mid-August.
“We understand that this is a trip that everyone needs to put some money out there, everyone understands that,” Brandon said. “It’s really just helping those kids and the parents who are making a lot of sacrifice.”
Once the team gets to L.A., the team will cheer at one to two events per day, cheering at events ranging from aquatics to gymnastics to judo. The team has had to learn special choreography required of all participating cheerleaders from around the country.
But performing a routine is nothing new to this group of cheerleaders, and team members are growing more and more anxious for their trip in the days leading up to their departure.
“They are used to getting up in front of a crowd, and they love it,” Brandon said. “This will be different in that we’ll be cheering on all athletes, we’re not picking a side. Instead of being Mercer Island versus our opponent, we’re cheering for the world.”
To support the team, visit their GoFundMe page at http://www.gofundme.com/xad5f7w.
