The Best Buddies 2010-2011 year has officially kicked off with the matching party Sunday October 3rd. The purpose of the event was to introduce all of the buddies with their peer buddy matches for the new year. It’s an exciting event that is one of the most anticipated events each year in the club.

Although the peer buddies know who they’re matched up with going into the event, it’s a total surprise for the buddies.

Senior Vice President Rachel Powell is excited about all the new buddies in the program. “We had a lot of new buddies in the program so we made a lot of key matches this year. We were much more welcoming to younger students as peer buddies because we needed a lot of new matches to keep up with all the new buddies coming into the program.” Powell said.  

The event started when all of the buddies arrived, as the peer buddies had been there earlier so they already knew exactly how everything was going to go. As soon as the buddies got there everyone sat down in the student cafeteria and watched two videos. The first video was the end of the year video they show at senior night every year, and the second video was the award winning video the club made last year about stopping the use of the word “retarded”. The videos did a good job of showing what the club was about and the success of the club in the last few years.

After the introduction all of the buddies’ parents went into the faculty cafeteria with the faculty sponsors to talk all about the club. While they were doing that the students all split into three groups and participated in three ice breaker games so all the new buddies and peer buddies got to know each other.

After the games and information everyone regrouped in the student cafeteria and after a few more announcements from the officers it was time to figure out the new buddy pairs for the year. The way it was set up was with all the buddies on one side of the cafeteria and all the peer buddies on the other side. Each buddy and peer buddy was given a piece of candy. The buddies then had to match the piece of candy they had with the peer buddy who had the same kind of candy. For example if the buddy had a snickers bar they would have to find the peer buddy or two that had a snickers bar and they would be a buddy pair for the year. That whole process took about 15 minutes and then the anticipation was over and everybody knew who they were paired up with this year.

After the excitement all the new buddy pairs went into the faculty cafeteria to get to know each other. They also exchanged contact information and the peer buddies got to meet their new buddy’s parents. During the social time ice cream was served and for the last 30 minutes of the event everyone socialized and ate ice cream.

Overall Powell thought the whole event went really well. “Everything went smoothly and how we wanted. It’s always really exciting for the buddies because they look forward to this day all year.” 

The next event is the Halloween party on October 24th.