Volunteer Spotlight: Kristin Schoonveld

After discovering a passion for working with people with intellectual disabilities while she was a student at North Central High School in the 1980s, Kristin Schoonveld — our 2021 Spirit of Special Olympics Volunteer of the Year — first became involved as a volunteer with Special Olympics Indiana by assisting at local competitions and even attending Summer Games as a chaperone. That passion soon became a career — but it wasn’t until she met Washington Township athlete Kelley Schreiner through her work and agreed to join the WTSO Unified basketball team in 2011 that she says her volunteer journey truly began.

“Playing on that team was an exhilarating experience. I was definitely hooked immediately on the unique and upbeat energy everyone in that gym was giving off.”

Over the course of the past 11 years, Kristin has regularly served her local program in a variety of roles including Unified partner, coach, mentor, fundraiser, driver, and chaperone. She has helped to organize special events, to design and distribute flyers and athletic apparel, to transport and set up equipment and supplies for Summer Games, and to oversee the program’s Athlete Leadership Council. She has been an active participant in local and state fundraisers including an annual holiday wreath sale and Polar Plunge events at Butler University and Eagle Creek Park.

Kristin is also a tremendous advocate for inclusion and empowerment, volunteering at the state level as an instructor for Athlete Leadership University and spearheading the development of the program’s Leadership Through Visual Arts curriculum.

“Volunteering is a wonderful way to connect and give back to our communities,” she says. “That’s why we are motivated in the first place to volunteer, right? The added bonus here is the truly unmatched level of jubilation and inspiration that you will see and feel each and every time you set foot at a Special Olympics event. It is intense and life changing.”

Kristin’s lifelong passion for making a difference in the lives of people with intellectual disabilities is evident to all who meet her, but like many of our most dedicated volunteers, her connection to Special Olympics Indiana is also personal: in 2018, she married Brian Schoonveld and adopted his son, Nick — a Washington Township athlete and longtime friend who she first met nearly 30 years earlier while volunteering in his second-grade classroom at Nora Elementary School.

The incredible journey that brought Kristin, Brian, and Nick together after the passing of Brian’s wife, Grace — and included Kristin discovering the existence of a biological son conceived from eggs that she had donated in 1994 — was recently the subject of a pair of stories published by The Indianapolis Star and People Magazine. But for Nick, Kelley, and their fellow athletes, Kristin is much more than a human-interest story. She is a friend, and someone who they can count on to make each day fun no matter the circumstances.

When health and safety concerns related to COVID forced the suspension of Special Olympics Indiana’s in-person events and other activities in March 2020, Kristin quickly stepped up and helped to organize and lead a wide variety of virtual activities over Zoom, many of which continued throughout 2021. She has hosted everything from walking and exercise events to book clubs, movie and game nights, and even birthday parties, providing meaningful opportunities for athletes and volunteers to stay connected during an extremely difficult time. And last March, she held an adapted Polar Plunge event at her home, inviting athletes to take a dip into a wading pool in the driveway while maintaining social distancing protocols.

For all these reasons and more, Kristin was nominated in 2021 by the Washington Township management team for our annual Spirit of Special Olympics Volunteer of the Year Award, which she was officially presented by our Board of Directors at last year’s State Conference. And she has no plans of slowing down any time soon.

“I continue to volunteer for Special Olympics because the deep, lifelong bonds with athletes, caretakers and other volunteers that I have formed these past 11 years keep me invested,” she says. “As long as I am able, this is where you will find me!”