{"id":3508,"date":"2024-07-15T16:22:05","date_gmt":"2024-07-15T16:22:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brownsvillecic.com\/?p=3508"},"modified":"2025-07-26T03:21:04","modified_gmt":"2025-07-26T03:21:04","slug":"brownsville-non-profit-kicks-off-new-sports-program-for-special-needs-community-krgv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brownsvillecic.com\/es\/brownsville-non-profit-kicks-off-new-sports-program-for-special-needs-community-krgv\/","title":{"rendered":"Brownsville non-profit kicks off new sports program for special needs community (KRGV)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The following article was originally published on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.krgv.com\/videos\/brownsville-non-profit-kicks-off-new-sports-program-for-special-needs-community\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">KRGV<\/a><\/p>\n<p>A non-profit in Brownsville is bringing adaptive sports to the special needs community in the Rio Grande Valley.<\/p>\n<p>Fernanda Salinas, 9, hasn&#8217;t gotten to experience sports like other kids. Her mother, Zoraya, says navigating her disability since birth hasn&#8217;t been easy.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Her disability is extremely rare, there is very little cases about it. She has Mccune Albright&#8217;s Syndrome with Polyostoic Fibrous Dysplasia. So Fernanda has undergone multiple procedures since the age of two,&#8221; Zoraya said.<\/p>\n<p>But despite her challenges, Fernanda is full of life and glad for the opportunity of community that Down By The Border has provided.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I thought that I was the only one with a disability, but until I went to this community, I thought like, no I&#8217;m not the only one,&#8221; Fernanda said.<\/p>\n<p>Community and a sense of belonging is a major motivator that non-profit co-founder of Sergio Zarate says made him approach the city of Brownsville for this program.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I always wondered why does everybody else get the opportunity to play sports? Why isn&#8217;t there adaptive sports or sports for those with special needs? It takes a big group of volunteers and a community and city to say yes,&#8221; Zarate said.<\/p>\n<p>The year-long program is free for those interested and was paid for by a $50,000 grant issued to the non-profit by the Brownsville Community Improvement Corporation; a partnership the city of Brownsville is proud to be a part of.<\/p>\n<p>Watch the video <a href=\"https:\/\/www.krgv.com\/videos\/brownsville-non-profit-kicks-off-new-sports-program-for-special-needs-community\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">on KRGV<\/a> for the full story.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The following article was originally published on KRGV A non-profit in Brownsville is bringing adaptive sports to the special needs community in the Rio Grande Valley. Fernanda Salinas, 9, hasn&#8217;t gotten to experience sports like other kids. Her mother, Zoraya, says navigating her disability since birth hasn&#8217;t been easy. &#8220;Her disability is extremely rare, there [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3509,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[89,74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community-development","category-quality-of-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brownsvillecic.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brownsvillecic.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brownsvillecic.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brownsvillecic.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brownsvillecic.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brownsvillecic.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3508\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brownsvillecic.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brownsvillecic.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brownsvillecic.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brownsvillecic.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}