Tony Caissie - bottom right, celebrates a successful day at last year's Melfort Multi-K with his Melfort Special Olympics team (submitted photo/Tony Caissie)

By Ben Tompkins

Melfort Special Olympics

Northeast local wins Sask Sport volunteer dedication award

Apr 12, 2023 | 5:15 PM

A Melfort man has been recognized by Special Olympics Saskatchewan, earning himself a Saskatchewan Sport Award in the volunteer dedication category.

Tony Caissie has been a crucial part of the Special Olympics Melfort Committee, having been volunteering with the organization for more than 10 years.

He is currently serving as the program coordinator and helps organize meetings, apply for grants, assist with registration, and community accreditation, as well as volunteer and athlete recruitment and facility booking.

“It’s a big honour to be nominated amongst all of the various volunteers that we have throughout the province,” Caissie told northeastNOW. “Definitely am grateful to be honoured, but the other volunteers are really holding the fort as well, and I just have a role to play.”

Caissie was one of four people to have been acknowledged across Saskatchewan this year, as a volunteer.

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The annual program celebrates the success and dedication of those in the province’s amateur sport community.

“I think myself, but also Special Olympics was honoured, there’s just a lot of other sports groups that were under the umbrella of Sask Sport,” said Caissie. “I think we’ve done well locally and provincially with Special Olympics, bringing some athletes back and bringing some volunteers back and creating some new programs locally as well.”

In 2020-21, Caissie was also named the Special Olympics Saskatchewan Bob Peddie Memorial Award Winner, which is given to a long-standing volunteer, for his dedication to Special Olympics in the province.

He added that Melfort Special Olympics has had a fairly good season themselves, as their curling team won a gold medal (earning a spot at the Canadian Nationals in Calgary next year), their bowling team won a bronze medal, and they have a new competitive swim program and coach.

“Some really super exciting things happening locally.”

Nominees for the Saskatchewan Sports Awards were submitted by Sask Sport members, sport community groups, media or the general public. Recipients were then selected by a Sask Sport awards committee.

Sask Sport is a volunteer-led, non-profit organization committed to enriching Saskatchewan communities.

As the provincial federation for amateur sport, Sask Sport develops collective programs and services beneficial to sport.

Today, 70 provincial and multi-sport organizations and districts represent more than 330,000 registered participants in the province.

Caissie won this award back in January, however, was out of the country and away on vacation until recently, therefore, northeastNOW was unable to schedule an interview.

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