Thousands of volunteers help put on Special Olympics Hawaii Summer Games

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – The 2026 Special Olympics Hawaii summer games kick off this weekend.

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It’s a three-day event to let athletes with intellectual disabilities shine.

Special Olympics Hawaii is in full prep mode for its summer games.

Over the last few years, the three-day event has slowly comeback to full force after the COVID pandemic.

This year, all events will be held at the University of Hawaii at Manoa after they held track events at Kaiser High School while the university finished their new on-campus track and field facility.

“Now we can put the full event back to the University of Hawaii,” Special Olympics Hawaii president Dan Epstein said. “We’ve got track and field, swimming and powerlifting happening at UH, we’ve also got softball happening at UH and also at Sand Island.”

A chance for the athletes to compete on the same surfaces as the State’s only Division I athletics program.

“They have fantastic facilities, being on a college campus our athletes feel like, hey, we’re being acknowledged as athletes,” Epstein said. “They’ve been training for months for this event, so getting to use those facilities, they really feel like it.”

While it’s a weekend to celebrate Hawaii’s amazing athletes behind the scenes, it’s an entire village of coaches and volunteers that helps make these games possible.

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“So without our volunteers, nobody in this office can do their job,” volunteer coordinator Dallas Jenkins said. “It’s a huge job and it’s all just from the goodness of people’s hearts and so it’s it’s really amazing to see.”

Special Olympics Hawaii anticipates about 2,000 volunteers for the summer games alone. That’s on top of the year-round volunteer coaches and staff for the individual teams.

It’s a weekend of inclusion that most volunteers say is the most memorable part of the experience.

“It’s because they get that connection and the joy,” Jenkins said. “The joy that you see on the athlete’s face, just giving them a high five when you walk past is like everything.”

Organizers hope that feeling of inclusion and acceptance goes beyond the summer games.

“Many times after the weekend is over when you step off campus, then they’re looked at as somebody with a disability and not necessarily given that same level of respect or appreciation,” Epstein said. “So really our goal is and what our volunteers help us do is really carry that bubble of inclusion beyond Special Olympics.”

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The Opening Ceremonies are set for Friday at UH’s Les Murakami Stadium.