On April 11 2009, 40 UBS Beijing employees and their families joined with another 40 Special Olympics athletes (students from local Special schools “adopted” by UBS), their teachers and staff from Special Olympics East Asia office at Baiquan Hill in suburb Beijing’s Huairou District for a day’s unified tree-planting activities.

Although the ride was longer than expected due to bad traffic, all participants were in high spirits when they arrived at the venue. Divided into 4 teams composed of SO athletes and volunteers, all participants were immediately busy in heated discussion to elect the team leader and choose a team name, anthem, and slogan. Shy at first, with warm encouragement from their team mates, most athletes soon became more and more active in a short while, playing and cheering with their teams in the team activities.

As it was the Easter weekend, all participants climbed Baiquan Hill in 4 teams to “seek” Easter eggs before planting trees in the afternoon. The team members helped each other all the way long. When some athletes were too tired to move on, there were always encouraging words and helping hands from the volunteers. When it finally came to the tree-planting session, although most people were in sweats, everyone was excited, working in pairs to plant the saplings into the pits and water the newly planted. When they finished, they also hang on the saplings heart-shaped cards, putting on their best wishes for the small trees and for their newly made special friends.

After a day’s activities, almost every participant was tired, but they were all very happy. As one athlete put it, “I feel it a long day because we did a lot of activities. Yet I also feel it a short day because I do not want to part with my new friends.”

Unified Activity of Volunteers and SO Athletes

Team Activity

We Reached the Final Stop

We Are Team “G1”

We Are Team “Happy-Happy”

Take a Break before Moving On

Planting Trees

 

Group Photo

Group photo