Special Olympics Montana
For Both Winter and Summer Games
The Special Olympics movement all began in the 1950s and early 1960s, when Eunice Kennedy Shriver saw how unjustly and unfairly people with intellectual disabilities were treated. She also saw that many children with intellectual disabilities didn’t even have a place to play. She decided to take action. This action started as a summer day camp in her own backyard then morphed into the first international Special Olympic Summer Games taking place in Chicago in July of 1968. From this first games, the movement has grown to provide opportunities for individuals with ID in 193 countries, serving 5.4 million athletes.
In 1970 not long after the first International Special Olympics Summer Games, Special Olympics Montana was founded. The movement began with SOMT hosting its first-ever State Summer Games in Billings, MT for around 400 athletes. In those 50 years, the organization has grown to serve over 3,000 athletes statewide offer 13 sports and over 25 competitions year-round.
