Best Buddies serves to pair college and high school students with community members of intellectual disabilities.

This month is Best Buddies Month, and the group is campaigning on behalf of the Spread the Word to End the Word campaign, a campaign to stop the use of the word “retarded” to refer to persons with disabilities.

Best Buddies is a 25-year-old international non-profit organization, dedicated to enhancing the lives of people with intellectual disabilities by providing opportunities for one-on-one friendships.

The ISU chapter has 141 members, but 35 buddies pairs, which means 35 ISU students are paired with 35 community members. There are also about 30 association members who don’t yet have a paired friendship. There are eight college chapters in Iowa and 18 high school chapters.

Anyone can become a member of the organization.

The pairs meet once a month, and every September, they have a coordinated event to match the college student volunteers in friendships with persons with intellectual disabilities. They generally meet one Sunday each month and do a variety of group activities, which usually include holiday-themed events.

The pairs played Halloween games in October. For Thanksgiving, they brought food and ate as a group. They also had a game day where they played Apples-to-Apples and a heads up game in which a person has to guess what word is on his or her forehead.

The pairs went to a Cyclone Hockey game in February and the event for March will be hosted with the Des Moines Iowa Chapter, when high school and college students meet together. The buddies will dress up for the event, and there will also be food and a deejay.

The activities are created by Riley Radach, freshman in pre-business, and Caroline Moffitt, freshman in elementary education.

The group celebrated the national awareness day for “Spread the Word to the End the Word” campaign March 4 at the Memorial Union. Members had more than 100 banners and gave people pens to raise awareness. They also use social media to spread their words and invite theirs friend through Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Matching can be a long process, said Matthew Backes, senior in electrical engineering. College students must first make sure they have enough time to commit — four to five hours each month — and then the club must match buddies with the same sex, interest, hobbies, favorite things like music, sports and activities.

The positive influences members receive is by getting to know more people, Backes said.

“[The] relationship in an actual society situation and gives them sense of feeling at home and belonging to the community,” he said. “They feel very good to help people and communicate individually. They do personal contact with each other and feel rewarded.”

Backes picked Andrew Brakey as his “Best Buddy.” Backes said they still keep in touch with each other.

The easiest way to get involved in the Best Buddies Chapter is to go to the Iowa State chapter’s homepage or email Backes.