Courtesy of Lehigh University Best Buddies
Seven Lehigh students and two Lehigh Valley residents have become a family over the past few years. They go out to eat together, go to the movies together and feel comfortable with one another.
An outsider would never guess they were matched through an organization.
People with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD) are often underrepresented on college campuses and isolated in social situations. Best Buddies is a club that strives for inclusiveness and friendship among students at Lehigh and people with IDD in neighboring communities.
Lehigh’s Best Buddies club unites people who may not have met otherwise. The organization matches students with a buddy — a person with IDD — and provides them with events on and off campus to build friendships. There are around 90 student members who are matched with 25 buddies through buddy families.
Buddies sign up online, and once a full list is generated it is sent to Lehigh, and the families are put together by the club. In each family there is one student member who is officially matched with the buddy or buddies, and two to four “associates” — students who also become close with the buddies.
The club runs in all 50 states and 54 countries, according to the Best Buddies universal website. Jackie Hildebrand, ’18, said she first heard of Best Buddies in Guatemala before coming to Lehigh.
The website states the organization’s overall goal is to go out of business.
“Best Buddies envisions a world where people with IDD are so successfully integrated into schools, workplaces and communities that its current efforts and services will be unnecessary,” the website reads.
Cristina Baquerizo, ’18, has been affiliated with Best Buddies since her freshman year of high school. She began as a secretary in her first year at Lehigh but is now the president and helps organize the club’s events.
“I knew some people with IDD before, and I thought they were really cool people, so I wanted to spend more time with them,” Baquerizo said. “Outside of Best Buddies, I see that there is not much inclusiveness (at Lehigh).”
She cited the dining halls in particular as somewhere she sees the biggest separation between those with IDD and those without it.
Hildebrand and Baquerizo are two of the seven student members in one buddy family, while Sharon and Linda are the buddies. Baquerizo is the only one officially matched with the two buddies, while the rest are associates. They see each other as just another group of friends and spend time together outside of school events.
Student secretary, Maggie Fannick, ’18, joined the club as a first-year but said her commitment grew over time.
“I originally just went to the events,” she said. “I wasn’t super involved. But then last year I was an associate with a really awesome buddy, so I started looking forward to all the events just to go and hang out with him.”
Best Buddies holds one event per month around two hours long, including holiday parties, movie nights and prom which allow the members of each family to bond and form relationships.
Baquerizo explained that when they first met, Sharon was not open and spoke quietly, but after almost three years of being friends the pair is really comfortable around one another.
“Sharon never learned my name for two years, and about two months ago she said it for the first time, and it made me really happy,” Baquerizo said.
Fannick said Best Buddies provides the opportunity to branch out and meet people outside of the campus bubble.
“I don’t feel like I have to (spend time with my buddy), I want to,” Baquerizo said.
The point of Best Buddies is to help introduce and build the foundation of a lasting bond, but from there the students take control. Baquerizo, Hildebrand and Fannick each said the reason they return to the club every year is for their buddy.
“The club helps you create that friendship, but afterward it’s up to you to develop it on your own,” Fannick said.
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