Lancer Spotlight 5/9/23: Linganore students help host a unified field day for FCPS middle school students
Linganore’s student volunteers pose in front of a sign for the unified sports event.
May 15, 2023
On May 5, Linganore P.E. and health teacher Rachael Easterday took a few of her students to Frederick High School to help host a unified field day.
This means that the event was held for disabled students, specifically middle schoolers from the Frederick County Public Schools (FCPS), in order to provide a safe environment where they could participate in different game and sports activities.
According to Easterday, the Linganore students held two stations for students at the event. Each station hosted different activities. The Linganore students’ activities included beachball, volleyball and mosquito tag, which is a tag game played with pool noodles.
In addition, there were soccer stations, frisbee stations and all kinds of games.
One of the Linganore students who helped run these stations was Linganore senior Katie Healy.
“My favorite part was volleyball; we could help [the kids] and have them take turns and like, do different things,” said Healy.
Easterday elaborated on her own experience at the unified field trip and being with the students.
“[My favorite part] was just seeing the smiles on the students’ faces that may not normally get the chance to be involved in field day and have their day that was all for them, and [it was] fun to see their smiles and hear their laughs,” said Easterday.
Linganore senior Loghan Day, who also volunteered for the event, shared the joy expressed by Easterday.
“Well, I thought it was really fun and exciting to work with different students that we haven’t met before,” Day said. “I stayed at the volleyball station the whole time, and I taught everybody how to use their hand-eye coordination and work together to score points.”
As much fun as it was for Easterday and her students to go to the event and help, the event was designed for the middle schoolers and was ultimately a great experience for them, too.
“I think it had a very positive effect on the students because they also got to meet new people and experience some fun things and see that they can do everything,” said Day.
