I saw a Medium article being shared on my social media feeds a lot. It was titled, "Thirty-five Years ago Olympic Icon Rafer Johnson lit the Cauldron Opening the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games" written by the LA84 Foundation. The full article is available here for those of you who want to read and understand where I'm coming from and why I was disappointed to see that a foundation as prestigious as the LA84 Foundation, whose mantra is "Play for All" had missed an incredible opportunity to educate the public on the Paralympic Games and the Paralympic Movement. Click here to read the article. Here is my response I published as a comment below.
"While I celebrate the LA84 Foundation’s dedication to provide sports opportunities for youth in SoCal, I am saddened to see that there was no mentioning of the foundation’s efforts to provide adapted sports programs for youth with disabilities or any work in raising awareness to the Paralympic Movement despite the ‘Play for All’ mantra. As you know LA2028 Games will also be hosting the Paralympic Games. In fact, it’s called the LA2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games. When we have a platform to speak up and influence people, we should use it to educate and inspire others. By failing to include the Paralympic Games as part of the upcoming major sports events in SoCal or to address the need to invest in adapted sports programs for youth in SoCal, we fail to acknowledge and respect the countless hours of hard work and determination of young generation adaptive athletes with dreams to represent their country at the highest level possible. Let’s make ‘Play for All’ mantra a reality for all abilities in SoCal and work towards creating equity in sports."