The Best Buddies Club is a worldwide organization dedicated to help partner students with learning disabilities with university or high school students in order to form friendships and inclusion, as well as build awareness about people who have intellectual and developmental disabilities. There are clubs all over the country at different schools and universities, and Andrews University became a part of the association last year. The club consists of a mix of students from Andrews and Blossomland Learning Center in Berrien Springs, Michigan.
Haley Wilson (senior, psychology) and her friend, Andrews alumna Alanna Taylor, came together to start The Best Buddies Club because they wanted to help pair people with disabilities with people who don't have disabilities in order to form friendships and close connections. Wilson states, “She’s [Alanna] really passionate about people with, specifically, autism, and IDDs [intellectual and developmental disabilities] in general, so that’s kind of how [the club] got started.” Wilson took over as president of the club after Taylor graduated.
When Wilson saw how much passion Taylor had for The Andrews Best Buddies Club, she wanted to share that passion as well. “Last year I was able to partner with another student from Blossomland, and we went pottery painting, and we were able to do other activities together,” she shares. “It was really cool to watch our friendship grow, and that all started because of Best Buddies. Otherwise, I never would have met her.”
Right now, the Andrews Best Buddies Club is quite small with only 16 members– four Andrews students and 12 Blossomland students. The club hopes to continue to grow and be able to partner with more clubs and groups in the future. Currently, the club has been putting on monthly events for people to enjoy.
Every April, the Best Buddies Club organization hosts its biggest fundraising event of the year, their Friendship Walk. The money that is raised goes to help specific needs for the organization. The Andrews Best Buddies Club puts on a mini fundraiser around campus. Wilson explains, “We only did about a mile. The money that we raised from selling food and drinks at the event then went to the organization.”
The Andrews Best Buddies Club has done many events of their own, including a Culver’s fundraiser to help fund their Friendship Walk event, a cookie-decorating event where people got to bake and decorate sugar cookies, and a game day where everyone brought a favorite game.
Some of Wilson’s favorite club events have been the holiday-themed ones. The club put on a Valentine’s Day party where people made cards and bracelets. The club also hosted a Thanksgiving party where people got to make cards and enjoy apple cider.
Wilson believes that people should join the Andrews Best Buddies Club because it is a club that truly focuses on inclusion. “I think a common response that we get when we talk about the club, especially from Andrews students, is that they aren't confident in their abilities to spend one-on-one time with someone with intellectual developmental disability, and so that often holds them back,” she says.
Wilson encourages people to break past the norms and step out of their comfort zones when it comes to joining this club. “At the end of the day, they're just people. You talk to them the same way you talk to a friend. I think that people are often held back by titles, so in order to overcome stigma, we need to talk about it.” She continued, “It's not enough to just say, ‘Oh, well, that's a good cause, but I don't want to do it.’ I think if you really want to make a change in the world, then you have to actually do something, which is what Andrews is all about, because we're called to be world changers.”
If you would like to join the Andrews Best Buddies Club, contact Wilson through the club’s Instagram page @andrews_bestbuddies or via email: hwilson@andrews.edu.
The Student Movement is the official student newspaper of Andrews University. Opinions expressed in the Student Movement are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, Andrews University or the Seventh-day Adventist church.