Hunter Middle School eighth-grader Kyle Nedeau normally wears braces on his knees and feet. Saturday he went waterskiing and didn’t need them.
Nedeau was part of the crowd – the biggest ever, despite a threatening weather forecast – at the Sports, Arts and Recreation of Chattanooga organization’s annual water sports day at the First Lutheran Church Camp on Possum Creek. Nearly 240 volunteers and participants signed in.
In addition to personal watercraft rides and other activities, the event features skiing for people with various disabilities. Many such as Brian Penny, 19, and Rowdy Bickley, 44, come back year after year on the third Saturday in July and participated again.
Nedeau, 13, was a first-timer after a couple of months of attending SPARC’s adaptive cycling rides at the Tennessee Riverpark.
“I thought it was cool,” Kyle said of his first time on the adaptive ski, as he looked forward to another turn in the afternoon.
His father is a district supervisor for Krystal, and the family moved to the area from Kansas a year and a half ago. Knowing the Nedeaus were looking for activities for Kyle, a Hunter teacher referred them to Debbie Hightower, a SPARC co-founder who works for Pediatrics Plus.
Kyle weighed 12 ounces when he was born, 24 weeks after conception. He was up to 4 pounds, 3 ounces when he went home after 100 days at the University of Maryland hospital. While taking regular classes and talking about becoming a doctor, he is limited in physical areas such as sports.
“He’s had a lot of significant health problems, but God is good,” said his mother, Sara Nedeau. “We are new to SPARC, but for Kyle to be able to belong to something, something active, and be successful at it – he’s never had that before. And any 13-year-old boy wants that.
“I can’t say what a blessing this has been to him and to our family.”
Kyle’s two younger sisters, who don’t have special needs, also had fun at Saturday’s event.
“They’ve done tubing, kayaking and paddleboat. They’re having a blast,” Sara said. “This is just such an awesome program.”
The continuing help from so many companies, organizations and individual volunteers are a testament to that.
“Our church and church camp feel fortunate to be part of this,” said Robby Tyson, First Lutheran’s camp chairman. “It’s phenomenal what these people do here, and they’re so great to work with. If they wanted to do this more than once a year, we’d be happy to let them. When we do improvements here, we keep SPARC and people with disabilities in mind.”
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