By Jennifer Eisenbart
Editor
When Donna McKusker found out she was the Burlington Kiwanis 2016 Frank Tobin award winner, her first question was, “Why?”
“When you do something like Special Olympics, you do it because you really want to do it,” McKusker said. “And you get so much more back than you ever give.”
McKusker was given the annual award Monday night at the Kiwanis monthly meeting at The Waterfront. The award is named for a charter member of the Burlington Kiwanis, who was an advocate for Burlington youth and the community, and honors a person with a strong tradition of service both to the club and to the area community.
Tobin Committee Chairman Timothy Boyle called McKusker “an easy choice.”
“Her heart is bigger than life and her unselfish work with the Special Olympics is
beyond admirable,” Boyle wrote in an email. “She wrote me and said, ‘There are so many kids to love, so little time.’”
McKusker has been working with Special Olympic for close to 25 years, starting in Indiana in when her daughter, Karen, got involved at age 8.
She and her late husband, Jim, along with Karen’s sibling, moved to Wisconsin in 1992. McKusker wanted to get Karen involved, but the area efforts were focused at the high school level and older. Karen was just in sixth grade.
Karen finally joined the high school program when she reached high school in 1995. Donna took over the program the next year when the program director moved.
McKusker has been the agency manager for Western Racine County Special Olympics ever since. She started with 49 athletes, all at the high school age or older.
“I just saw this huge need,” said McKusker, whose own daughter started in a jersey that was so big, it looked like a dress at age 8. She wanted that experience for others.
“No one really knew there was a Special Olympics agency out here,” she explained. “From there, it just grew.”
Now, 20 years later, there are more than 170 athletes involved in 12 different sports: track and field, basketball, basketball skills, soccer, aquatics, golf, bocce, bowling, snowshoeing, T-ball, softball and volleyball.
“Words can’t express what it means to me, truly,” Donna said of the program. “It is really hard to explain. You know you’re giving people something they otherwise wouldn’t have.”
The program in the area spans ages 9 to 67, giving the athlete a chance to compete on a level playing field that has no societal bias and an enthusiastic environment. The Special Olympic program, Donna added, serves as a chance for parents to network and develop contacts.
But the athletes compete for the love of the game.
“They compete for the love of doing it and the sport,” McKusker said. “I have some amazing athletes that have the greatest amount of sportsmanship you can imagine.
“I just can’t imagine my life without it,” she added.
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