Over 50 volunteers were busy building welcome bags on Friday morning at the Palm Springs Chamber of Commerce for the anticipated arrival of Special Olympic athletes from Portugal and Bahrain. Each bag contained over 30 items donated by local businesses, destinations, and the Palm Springs Chamber of Commerce.
“Oh, I’ve been nervous for a year! Yeah, we just want this to be perfect and we want everything to go really well for our athletes,” said Nona Watson, CEO of the Palm Springs Chamber of Commerce.
Gifts included candy, pins, and even personalized Coca-Cola cans with the individual athletes’ names on them.
“We are going to give 94 athletes from Portugal and Bahrain a Palm Springs experience,” said Watson. “We’ve got a lot of events. We’re going to go to the tram, we’re going to go the Living Desert, we have a big community dinner soiree on Thursday night, and of course like you said we’re starting it off with the torch run this Saturday.”
The Torch Run on Saturday night is scheduled to start at 6:30pm around the Palm Canyon Theatre parking lot in Palm Springs. The route goes south on Palm Canyon Drive, turns east on Amado Road, and ends at the Palm Springs Convention Center.
Mayor Pro Tem Paul Lewin will head 45 individuals participating in the run. The list including a Special Olympic athlete, law enforcement officials from around the world, and a former Olympic athlete from the 1984 Summer Games who currently works at Desert Regional Medical Center.
“When [Special Olympic athletes] go back after the games, and they go back, the relationships they’ve established, the experiences they will have will carry them the rest of their lives,” said Fred Owusu, the Chief Human Resources Officer at Desert Regional Medical Center.
Owusu represented Ghana in the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles. “One of my fondest experiences from the Games is walking into the Coliseum, the roar of the people and looking up into the crowd, and every face I looked at during Opening Ceremonies, people were smiling.”
Recalling the moment still gave Owusu goosebumps. He believes it’s an experience the Special Athletes from Portugal and Bahrain will also share when their journey starts next week in Palm Springs.