Coffee, cookie fundraiser on tap to benefit Burrell’s new Special Olympics bocce team

What could be more special than the new Special Olympics bocce team at Burrell? A coffee and cookie fundraiser Thursday served up by the players from 9 to 11 a.m. at Cora Lee Cupcakes.

Burrell School board recently approved the new Special Olympic bocce program that will begin practice after Thanksgiving.

This is the school district’s first sanctioned sports team for special needs students.

About a dozen Burrell bocce players from the district’s life skills class will serve coffee, hot tea, hot chocolate, chips, cereal bars and cookies from Cora Lee Cupcakes in the hallway near the cupcake shop in Feldarelli Square, 2300 Freeport Road, New Kensington.

A Burrell parent has become an unofficial booster for the bocce program and hopes to raise money to pay for a banquet at the end of the bocce season.

“Since the program is brand new, these kids are starting from scratch,” said Courtney Kobelenske, a Lower Burrell mother whose daughter Cora, 17, is among the bocce players.

“These kids should get the full effect of playing a sport and should have a banquet,” she said.

Kobelenske is also co-owner of Cora Lee Cupcakes, named after her daughter.

“We are so lucky to have the support from Mrs. Kobelenske to start the season off with a bang,” said Hannah Cress, Burrell’s life skills teacher and one of the coaches of Burrell’s unified bocce team. “She has already fundraised and is continuing to help us raise money.

“I have been an athlete for almost all my life, and I always looked forward to a night to celebrate all of our hard work and dedication to the sport.”

The team currently has eight athletes with disabilities signed up with another eight non-disabled students, Cress said.

“Since promotion of social inclusion is one of the key outcomes, a unified sports team must have a proportional number of students with and without disabilities,” she said. “This is such a great dynamic, and my students really thrive being surrounded by their peers.”

The bocce season starts at the end of November with all other high school winter sports, Cress said. The matches will most likely run from December to March with playoffs scheduled afterward.