Woman who started soccer program for people with special needs is honored for Feel Good Friday

EastIdahoNews.com and Ashley in Idaho Falls and Pocatello are partnering to honor people in our community for Feel Good Friday. Every week, we surprise someone deserving of special recognition.

We recently received an email about a woman named Mary who has started a unique program in Idaho Falls. The message said:

Mary works tirelessly for the Eastern Idaho Down Syndrome Group. In addition, she started and runs the TOPS soccer program for our group. This requires scheduling fields, getting volunteers, arranging for buddy partners for each athlete, sending out schedules and reminders, getting waivers signed, getting uniforms, and who knows how much other behind the scenes work. She has expanded the program to multiple sessions a year and a tournament in less than two years.

Here is the initial note sent to us from Mary in November 2021:

We are starting a TOPSoccer program in our area. This is a 6-8 week soccer program for people (kids to adults) with special needs. It is a US Youth Soccer program. We are super excited! It will run in the spring. I am looking for good ideas of equipment we can purchase that would be useful/fun for the individuals with special needs to use during the sessions. Any ideas of equipment that would be useful with soccer or athletic activities would be very much appreciated!

The program has taken off and is a big success. We decided to surprise Mary and thank her for all she’s done. Watch the video in the player above!