Drastic cuts to gaming grants for local Special Olympics mean Sunshine Coast teams won't have the travel budget they need to compete.
"Special Olympics is basically about competition," local co-ordinator Iris McEwen said, explaining that across the seven sports available, only basketball has enough people to create two teams and allow for local competition.
"We have to compete with somebody so we can get better so we can move on to the next level of competition and so forth. And [now] we can't really manage it - taking the ferry, taking cars, taking vans, staying overnight, that sort of thing."
Even for individual sports, such as swimming, athletes feel the lack of proper competition.
"They just swim against one another, but they don't have any new blood or any adrenaline to kind of pump them on," she said.
This year, Special Olympics on the Sunshine Coast applied for $34,078 in gaming grants. They've just learned, McEwan said, that they were granted $5,820 - about a quarter of what they received last year.
"Our issue pretty much is that the gaming funds were really set aside specifically for this purpose and this year they are putting these funds into general revenue," McEwen said. "But we're not the only [Special Olympics] local in the province that's been cut back. Everyone's been cut back."
Since the freeze and review of gaming funds over the summer, the Ministry of Housing and Social Development has repeatedly listed "youth and disabled sports" as one of its top funding priorities.
A press backgrounder provided by the Ministry this week states that, "Our government believes in the value of the Special Olympics and we appreciate the tremendous volunteer effort that goes into the program. That's why we continue to provide strong support to Special Olympics BC."
The Ministry says that core funding for Special Olympics this year through the Ministry of Healthy Living and Sport will drop by two per cent vis-à-vis last year, to $126,000, and that gaming grants will drop by $61,000 year over year to $160,000.
And while the funding cut won't fold the program locally, McEwen said it will undercut what the Special Olympics program has traditionally provided.
"The athletes will still go to practice, they'll still love it, but they won't have that added thing - and that is the competition with the other locals," she said. "And they love the camaraderie they have from other athletes from other locals."
Local athletes, she said, will need to turn to the community for support they haven't found from gaming.
"Athletes likely will have to do one heck of a lot more fundraising," she said. "We're going to have to think of some creative way of stretching out to our very, very supportive community and asking for more money. It's kind of sad."
