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Student activist has worked with Special Olympics since childhood

Tori Kiser has been volunteering with Special Olympics since she was a young girl.

CABOT, Ark. — Since she was a young girl, Tori Kiser has spent her time volunteering with the Special Olympics. She is an all-around athlete in her own right but sees value in making sure those with disabilities are viewed as normal.

"I love to play basketball, track and cross country for my school and I'm also a  dancer," Tori said.

Tori is a student-athlete. But there is one thing she's truly passionate about, Special Olympics.

"You actually get to learn to include people who are different from you and learn how to work with those with intellectual disabilities," Tori said.

She's volunteered for Special Olympics since she was a young girl. She participated in fundraisers like the law enforcement torch run, Summer Games in Searcy and even serving as student chair for Cabot's Polar Plunge for Special Olympics Arkansas.

It's also her platform, as Miss Metro's Outstanding Teen, providing a voice for Special Olympics and inclusion.

"We often times are either afraid or uncomfortable to work with those who have intellectual disabilities," Tori said. "And we put them to the side but we really need to focus on including them."

Tori's basketball coach, Mary Emily Nash said Tori adds a whole new dynamic to the team and their program. 

"She's always going to be there with an encouraging word or a smile for her teammate," Nash said. "And that's a very hard thing to coach at the junior high level."

Nash says she leads by example on and off the court and is always looking for ways to include everyone in any aspect of sport or physical education. 

"She would always try to find a way for them to be included whether it was just being a scorekeeper or trying to help us find something that they liked," Nash said. "She always wanted to try to help them be involved in some way."

But what she's most proud of is seeing Tori stand up to her peers whenever she sees students being mistreated. 

"I would see them either being disrespectful or saying words like the r-word, which is retard and retarded, which I am highly against that word," Tori said.

It's what motivated her to follow in her brother's footsteps once he graduated and continue their campaign to get classmates to sign a pledge to stop using the r-word.

"I'm happy now that I can see in ninth grade how we are bonding the relationships with those with intellectual disabilities," Tori said. "Because we are gaining more confidence  and abilities to speak to them."

Tori is also gaining more opportunities to learn and teach others about inclusion in schools. this month she was selected to represent Arkansas at the Special Olympics Unified Champion Schools Conference in San Diego, California. 

"I got to learn about their progress and how they took it into schools," Tori said. "And so now hopefully I can be successful in bringing it to more schools here."

Her teachers and coaches say they have no doubt she can do it and say they're proud of her and the remarkable message she's spreading daily. 

"Tori's an inspiration to all of us she inspires her peers she inspires the adults around her," Nash said.

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