On Oct 25, 2008, over 100 student volunteers from Shanghai Normal University welcomed some special guests- 40 Special Olympics athletes from Shanghai Dongli Fengmei Kangjian School and the Changqiao Street Sunshine Home and around 30 staff volunteers and family members from the Timken Company, who took part in the half-day University Day event held by the Sports Institute of Shanghai Normal University. The University Day is part of Special Olympics University Project sponsored by SO East Asia and SO China, which has been introduced to over 100 universities around China over the past 5 years.

 

University Volunteers with SO athletes

 

Good friends—a volunteer with a SO athlete

 

Timken volunteers and SO athletes playing together

During the day’s activities, the SO athletes were paired with student volunteers from the Sport Institute of Shanghai Normal University, while Timken volunteers acted as Unified Sports partners practicing and competing on bowling and basketball. Although the activities lasted but for two hours, all participants soon befriended each other and the gym was full of laughter and cheers.

 

Unified basketball competition

 

Timken and university volunteer coaching SO athlete

 

Playing games together

 

Timken volunteer presenting awards to SO athletes

At the closing ceremony, the headmaster of Dongli Fengmei Kangjian School expressed gratitude towards Timken and university volunteers, saying "Corporate volunteers, like the ones from Timken, have brought lots of happiness to our students. Thanks to them and many more caring people, these children with intellectual disabilities feel the love from the society. We hope more and more people from all aspects of the society, especially those from corporations, will show their love to intellectually disabled people like Timken."

Talking about how they feel about taking part in such CSR activities, Ms. Wan Lin, Senior Human Resources Commissioner of Timken China said, "Timken is committed to becoming a socially responsible corporate citizen. As an employee of Timken, I sincerely hope our efforts may bring more warmth to intellectually disabled people from the society."

The Timken Company is one of the major sponsors of Special Olympics East Asia, funding various SO projects over the past three years, including SO Adopt-a-School project and University Project. Besides annual donations to SOEA, Timken employees have actively participated in various SO activities as volunteers and partners.