Twenty years old, Angela Click started with Special Olympics when she was fourteen. As a child, she had multiple surgeries and physical therapy for a cleft lip and scoliosis. It wasn't until middle school that her parents were told her learning difficulties were due to an intellectual disability.

Angela's grandmother, Emily, was a swim instructor who had taught her to swim. So Angela's mother, Frances, chose swimming as her first Special Olympics activity. Within a few minutes that first day, Angela was immediately part of the group in the water with her new friends, and Frances thought "this is unbelievable."

After that first experience swimming with Special Olympics, Angela felt part of something for the first time in her life. She says, "The other kids liked me and didn't tease me. They accepted me just the way I was."

In school, the teachers and coaches thought she was uncoordinated. While the other kids played basketball, Angela was given a trash can to throw balls into on the side of the gym.

Swimming breast stroke and freestyle was just the beginning for Angela. Depending on the season now, she trains, competes and wins medals in Bocce, Bowling, Aquatics, Equestrian and Track and Field.

Riding horses is her favorite sport. She competes in an obstacle course, where she has to do exactly what the judges tell her to do: circle to the right, circle to the left, and back up. She says of her favorite horse Dawn, "we are a team, we ride very well."

Angela spent most of her childhood recovering from surgeries and in physical therapy for her scoliosis. For one entire year, Angela wore a brace from her shoulder to her hip for 18 hours a day. Her parents say, "She weathered very well even though her childhood was so different from most children."

But Angela began to gain confidence from her Special Olympics activities, things at school began to change, too. "She focused more, and as the kids saw her medals and her picture in the paper, she gained status and began to be accepted."

I wanted to let you know how happy we are with the portrait of our daughter. We have never had a portrait of our daughter because we didn't think we could afford it, but with your help we now have one.

Our daughter is a Special Olympic athlete and she is so proud of the gold medals she won and now we have a portrait of her with her medals that we will treasure forever. It is hanging in our living room now and we get so many compliments on it. We are thinking of getting a portrait of our family next.

Thank you so much for all your help and it has been a pleasure doing business with you.

Fred Click
Special Olympics
Hernando County Coordinator
Hernando, FL USA

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