OBSERVER Photo by Anthony Dolce School Resource Officer Matthew Christopher, bottom left, presented the Dunkirk Unified Bowling athletes with Letterman’s Jackets to commemorate their win at the Unified Culmination Event. Mekiah Sedlacek, Justine Cornell, Ashleigh Cooper, Cadence Cave, and Eliseo Vega Hernandez (left to right next to Christopher) each received jackets and a pin. Unified athlete Jaden Robb was not present for the presentation.

The Dunkirk Unified Bowling team came away with a big win at the Unified Bowling Culmination Event at the end of February, and in recognition of that, each of the Unified athletes received a letter patch like athletes would receive in other sports. The only problem was that those athletes don’t have a letterman’s jacket to put that letter on.

Dunkirk’s School Resource Officer Matthew Christopher took that matter into his own hands.

A member of a few of the local clubs, Christopher reached out to the Kosciuszko Club in Dunkirk, which ended up donating all six necessary jackets for the students to receive, which they did during an assembly in the Dunkirk High School Auditorium on Friday afternoon.

“They weren’t going to get a jacket,” said Christopher. “I went out and asked the Kosciuszko Club if they would donate and they picked up the whole tab.”

All in all, Christopher said that it took roughly three weeks of preparation to put on Friday’s proceedings, where five of the students, Mekiah Sedlacek, Justine Cornell, Ashleigh Cooper, Cadence Cave, and Eliseo Vega Hernandez, received their jackets and special pins, while the sixth student, Jaden Robb, was absent from school. Christopher said he wanted these students to have something they could take with them for the rest of their lives.

“For them to have that letter D, I thought that was a big deal,” said Christopher. “And it belongs on a jacket. This is something they can take with them. I got the jackets a size too big so they can wear them for a while.”