So many of the activities Special Olympics Estevan runs in spring and summer had to be put on hold or shut down entirely last year due to COVID-19. This time around, as the weather warms up, they're planning on a much busier season. 

Details on programing for the spring and summer are still being hammered out, but the plan is to add even more programs this year. The last season of programming over the winter was able to get started, though COVID-19 still provided some bumps in the road.  

"All of our winter programs have just wrapped up and we're looking to the spring," said fundraising coordinator Kandyce Meili. "We'll have bocci and we're looking at a soccer program for the adult athletes." 

After last year's programs didn't get to move ahead in many cases, Meili and the athletes are looking forward to having some good news to celebrate this year, though the virus is again not making things easy. A new program like soccer would be further cause for excitement.

"It'll be nice," Meili said. "We do have some work to do to submit some return to play things and they will need to be approved by Special Olympics Saskatchewan, but we're really crossing our fingers that things go ahead this year and we're able to get people out and active."

This time around, there are still plenty of hoops to jump through to get the athletes back to play. The difference between this spring and last is that now they have experience navigating through the return-to-play plans after re-starting their winter programs in February, and now there are far more people vaccinated. 

"There is definitely optimism about the vaccine coming," said Meili. "It can only help us be able to have our programs running again with the more people they get vaccinated." 

There is no word yet on whether traditional events like the baseball game between them and law enforcement will be able to take place.