The All Sports Alberta Foundation hosts an event for children with special needs

The goal at Calgary's Creation Center on Monday was to make every child who walked through the door feel included.

All Sports Alberta Foundation hosted a family fun day for children with special needs.

“This is really special for us,” said Abdul Rahman, chair of the All Sports Alberta Foundation board of trustees.

“We organize a lot of sports or different activities… But we realized that there is not much in the community for children with special needs.

“We thought we had to do it.”

Nishail Shaikh, secretary of the All Sports Alberta Foundation and head of its youth program, also spoke about the need and the importance of making efforts to meet it.

“Often many activities are not tailored to the needs of children with special needs,” she said.

“So this measure is aimed at that.”

Stations were set up in northeast Calgary from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. for children to participate in activities such as basketball, cricket, field hockey, badminton, soccer and table tennis.

There was also face painting, balloon twisting, a bouncy castle, a magic show, arts and crafts and board game stations.

Something for everyone, Shaikh said, with the idea of ​​creating “a community where kids feel safe.”

“Every volunteer here knows that the main goal is to make these kids feel included and give them a truly memorable day,” she said.

“They are very loyal. We worked for weeks to hold this event.”

There were 40 volunteers on Monday and more than 125 guests are expected.

This is the third year for the event, but Rahman said it's something the All Sports Alberta Foundation has been working on for a long time.

“The initial planning was done during COVID, but then we couldn't do much because of COVID,” he said.

“We held our first events shortly after the COVID-19 outbreak.

“We plan to continue this every year, and we'll probably find other opportunities.”

More information about the All Sports Alberta Foundation program can be found at https://allsportsalberta.ca/.

With files from Tyler Barrow