Volunteers Pair Up With Local Kids

Like many close friends, Peter A. Meyerdirk '00 and Kellon Daytes play football and go to movies together. But Meyerdirk and Daytes, a mentally retarded student at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, owe their unlikely friendship to an international program called Best Buddies.

The Best Buddies program pairs college students with mentally retarded children and adults. On Saturday, Meyerdirk and Daytes celebrated their friendship along with more than two hundred buddies from the Boston area, as Harvard's chapter of Best Buddies hosted the first-ever Buddy Rama.

Harvard students, students from six other local colleges and their mentally retarded or learning disabled buddies spent the afternoon singing along with the Opportunes, making pictures frames, facepainting and eating ice-cream sundaes.

"I really liked the singing people," said Nichole Hayes, 18.

Event organizer Brian T. Chan '00 said he hoped the event would bring buddies together from across the state and create a community for participants. Chan directs the program, which is affiliated with PBHA, along With Bryan W. Leach '00.

During the course of the semester, more than 45 Harvard students visit their buddies weekly.

Some "[mentally retarded people] mostly come in contact with parents or paid staff members; they have no opportunity for real friendships," said Stephanie L. Sipe, who works for the Best Buddies regional office.

Daytes, 14, studied his blank picture-frame cryptically.

"Put some more stuff on this thing, dude," Meyerdirk said encouragingly, handing his friend an orange pipe-cleaner. The two were excited about the event, especially the late-afternoon dance-a-thon intended to raise money for Best Buddies.

"This guy can dance like a maniac," said Meyerdirk, as Kellon grinned.

Meyerdirk, like other Harvard students, said he values the hour each week he spends with Kellon, either in his Rindge and Latin classroom or during their privately schedule meetings times.

"Sometimes Harvard life is all about you--your life, your grades," Chan said. "Spending time with our buddies gives us a chance to change someone else's life."

According to Nadine E. Tubman, who addressed the event participants on Saturday, the Best Buddies program is about mutual respect and sharing.

"I learn from her; she learns from me," Tubman said, referring to her 18-year-old buddy, Sarah E. Rozga, a first-year student at Eastern Nazarene College in Quincy, Mass. Tubman said that when she has problems at the electrical switch factory where she works, she often confides in Rozga.

Likewise, Tubman looks out for her young friend, worried that Rozga might be suffering from home-sickness in her first year away from her Lansing, Mich., home.

"College students work too hard," Tubman said.

Rozga, a social work and psychology double major, said that mentally retarded individuals make excellent teachers.

"They are special people," she said. "We have a lot to learn from them through these real friendships."