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www.oakvillebeaver.com Living Oakville Beaver LIVING EDITOR: ANGELA BLACKBURN The Oakville Beaver, Wednesday November 7, 2007 - 13 Phone: 905-845-3824, ext. 248 Fax: 905-337-5567 e-mail: angela@oakvillebeaver.com · WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 7s, 2007 Emily's a rising star with Down Syndrome By Angela Blackburn OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF Emily Boycott has Down Syndrome. She is 24. She has rubbed shoulders with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, has dined with Premier Dalton McGuinty and met people like the Olsen twins, Don Cherry and Ron Maclean. Earlier this month, she competed for Team Canada in rhythmic gymnastics in Shanghai, China in the 2007 Special Olympics World Summer Games and brought home five gold medals. The Acton resident belongs to the Oakville Butterflies Rhythmic Gymnastics team and has twice been named a top Special Olympics athlete in Oakville. Her final results in China saw her on the podium to accept the gold medal in rhythmic ball, rhythmic hoop, rhythmic ribbon, rhythmic rope and all around rhythmic. "Arnold Schwarzenegger is much taller than me ... and I know his lines from movies, `I'll be back,'" said Emily, who along with her mom Debbie Boycott, recently took time out of a gymnastics practice at Lakeshore Road's Harvest Bible Chapel, to talk about her trip to China. Her mom is head coach of the Butterflies and was involved with the team that travelled to China. Schwarzenegger, his family and the Kennedy family in the U.S., which founded the Special Olympics, supports the competitions for those facing challenges. The actor was in Toronto earlier this fall and Emily had the honour of DEREK WOOLLAM / SPECIAL TO THE BEAVER GOOD AS GOLD: Emily Boycott, an Acton resident who represents the Oakville Butterflies Rhythmic Gymnastics, is a Special Olympics athlete who won five medals in Shanghai, China last month. introducing him at a ceremony in which Canadian Special Olympics gear was unveiled. She presented Schwarzenegger with a red-andwhite Maple Leaf training outfit. She later met up with him again in China at the events. For Emily, it all began seven years ago when it was discovered that rhythmic gymnastics wasn't represented in Ontario in the Special Olympics. And so it began. Emily worked her way through lower levels to the point where she now chooses her own music and scripts her own routines. She has had help with the choreography from former national team rhythmic gymnast Elfi Schlegel. Rhythmic gymnastics involves four disciplines-- the rope, ribbon, ball and hoop. Emily is in the Level 4 Special Olympics category, which is the most challenging as the athletes select their own routine and music. Emily has two brothers and two sisters, none of whom have Down Syndrome, and it was the Halton Down Syndrome Association that has helped the Boycott family adjust to the fact that Emily has Down Syndrome. Boycott said she's a support group type of person and linked up with other parents whose babies were about the same age. That networking actually led to the birth of the Halton Down Syndrome Association. A few core families ... Boycott lists their names ... have been fast friends and their children have grown up together over the years. Every year, on the first Sunday in September, the Boycotts, Debbie and her husband Dave, host the association's annual barbecue. "It's been a real blessing," said Boycott of the support her family has derived from the group.Boycott said years ago, accessing speech therapy was a real issue and being part of a formal group proved key to successfully accessing the therapy. Nov. 1-7 has been Down Syndrome Awareness Week and the Halton Down Syndrome Association was involved in getting word to the local community about itself -- a volunteer, parent-run association that has been serving families in Halton for more than 20 years and is now in the midst of a long-term strategic planning process. The local group is already considered a very progressive and involved association, and it plans to work toward more programs and services to meet its member family needs. Emily's accomplishments and conduct are proof that the investment in support pays off. "She's just been exploding on this bubble," said her mom of Emily's involvement with the Special Olympics. Just last year, Emily and her friend Alan McNeill, 25, were ambassadors for the World Down Syndrome Conference in British Columbia. "Alan is an awesome fellow and he and Emily have been friends since they were babies," said Boycott. This year Emily was off to the Special Olympics in China held Oct. 2-11. The event was important in China too, where recognition of people with special needs and challenges is making new inroad on the human rights front. "Rhythmic gymnastics is fun and you get to meet a lot of people. It's great just having fun with friends and being with people who love you and support you," said Emily. Now she, like Schwarzenegger, is planning to "be back" as she begins preparing to compete in the Special Olympics to be held four years from now in Greece. "I'm adding new stuff to my routine," said Emily who works parttime at Rose Cherry's Home and is about to start another part-time job. The Oakville Butterflies is a group established for youths aged 11 to 24 See Local page 14 Turning health into whole new fair for women By Angela Blackburn OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF Oakville's Angela Borgeest likes to turn dreams into reality. She's turning her own dream -- of hosting a Wholistic Women's Health Fair -- into reality this Saturday. By doing so, she hopes to help local women realize good health and happiness are not an elusive dream, but the reality of a healthy, happy body, mind and spirit. Borgeest has been at work a year organizing what she dubs the first ever Wholistic Women's Fair to take place this Saturday, Nov. 10. "If life is out of balance, it manifests in some way," said Borgeest. The Hong Kong native turned her own attention inward upon turning 40. That's when the ballet instructor became a registered nutritional consulting practitioner. She has been practicing for five years and works at Alliance Healthcare Professionals, which is sponsoring Saturday's health fair. Borgeest said one of her major frustrations in assisting women with weight concerns is that nutrition and diet alone aren't the remedy. If other things are out of whack, the physical body will suffer. "A year ago November, I had this Angela Borgeest dream. I wanted to share what a balanced lifestyle is all about," said Borgeest. Over the last year, Borgeest has hosted various speakers and demonstrations and collected donations. With it she amassed a budget to rent a hall for the show. Some of the popular speakers and demonstrators will take part in the health fair and the $10 admission will support both the Sexual Assault and Violence Intervention Services (SAVIS) and the Oakville & District Humane Society. Borgeest is a native of Hong Kong. She began studying dance at an early age, but did so as a hobby and then soon began teaching. Upon coming to Canada with her parents in 1980, Borgeest ran her own dance school for 18 years then, while still teaching part-time, earned her qualification as a nutritionist from the Institute of Holistic Nutrition and began practicing. She and her husband settled in Oakville and have a 15-year-old daughter. In November 2003, Borgeest joined Alliance Healthcare Professionals. Since then she has given lectures and workshops regularly in the community as well as with international organizations. See Health page 18