When Cheyenne Boucher decided to join Best Buddies in 2014, she had no idea her involvement with the organization would shape the trajectory of her life.

Best Buddies had just come to the state of New Hampshire. The organization was looking for partner schools to start programs. The athletic director at Pembroke Academy asked Boucher, then a high school sophomore, if she’d be willing to serve as chapter president. Knowing little about the organization beyond its premise of partnering students with intellectual and developmental disabilities with peers to form meaningful friendships, she said yes.

“Even if they don’t know about Best Buddies, everyone knows someone with a disability or who has anxiety or anything really social in that way and understands that loneliness and how being excluded feels. The mission of inclusion really hits home,” Boucher said.

Besides fostering friendships, the organization helps promote an integrated job market, offers leadership development, and provides resources for family support and independent living. Best Buddies spans 45 countries and all 50 states, with the goal of impacting as many people as possible for the better.

At the start of her junior year at Pembroke Academy, Boucher filled out a buddy-matching survey that led her to Owen Sansoucie, a fellow student at her school.

“A decade ago, we became matched,” Boucher said. “We’d been going to school together since first grade.”

Boucher and Sansoucie, now 26 and 27 respectively, still spend time together on a regular basis.

“Happy life,” Owen said of his friendship with Cheyenne. “We laugh a lot.”

As Sansoucie and Boucher got to know each other, they quickly discovered a mutual love of bowling, going to the movies, and eating at Friendly’s. They started spending time together at school, including playing unified sports side by side, and, eventually, began hanging out beyond school as well. Pembroke Academy’s Best Buddies chapter hosted a Homecoming Dance that first year, crowning the duo Homecoming King and Queen.

“A lot of the kids in our special education program had never been to a dance before,” Boucher said. “I just remember walking that night with Owen to his car to bring him to his dad after the dance. His dad broke down in tears, and said, ‘This program is amazing. I’m so glad that he got these opportunities.’”

That moment stuck with Boucher so vividly that her life plans began to shift.

“Up until that point, I wanted to be a fashion designer,” she said. “I started to realize that that might not be my career. So I talked to the special ed teacher at the high school, and I was like, ‘I think I want to go into special education.’”

Boucher learned about speech pathology, which set her charting a new course.

“I definitely don’t think I ever would have come across it had it not been for Best Buddies and the connections that I made with the staff members at my high school to even set me in this direction,” Boucher said. “I just really wanted to help people get their voice into the world. I feel like that’s what Best Buddies does, too.”

Sarra Dennehy Lynch, director for Best Buddies in New Hampshire, says Boucher’s journey has touched her heart.

“To me, it’s full circle. It’s an example of why we’re here and why we do what we do and why it’s important to get into the schools with kids. She was around 15 when I met her and now she’s a grown woman who has chosen to make it her life’s passion to work with people with disabilities,” Lynch said.

She emphasized that everyone deserves the same opportunities, a mission the organization strives to accomplish.

“People with disabilities have the least amount of opportunities,” Lynch added. “They have the softest voice. Best Buddies aims to change that and give people with disabilities opportunities for friendships, jobs, living situations, all the same things everyone else has.”

From high schooland beyond

Before Boucher left for college in New York, she made Sansoucie a photo album filled with memories from the past two years.

“Anytime I would come home, we would go out to eat or see each other,” she said. “And then as adults, we continue that well. It was never an outright conversation. It was more of, ‘We’re just friends for life.’”

Now living in Concord and working as a speech pathologist in the Shaker Regional School District, Boucher served as one of 10 fundraising champions for Best Buddies this fall. She raised over $28,000 and relished the opportunity to spread Best Buddies’ mission to those in her community.

“I was just excited to become a champion fundraiser, so that Owen and I could do it together and hopefully get that crown like we did for homecoming,” she said.

The pair decorated t-shirts, made bookmarks, held a fundraising night at Cavern Sports Bar & Grill in Pembroke, and created bingo boards, all to raise money for the nonprofit, which functions primarily off donations.

Sansoucie enjoyed participating in the fundraising efforts but really just appreciated getting to spend time with Boucher. The pair attended Best Buddies’s Champion of the Year Gala on Saturday Nov. 16, where they won first runner-up for the largest fundraising team.

“We’re friends for life,” he said. “I’ll always love her. I’m grateful for her being my friend.”

To learn more about Best Buddies, visit https://www.bestbuddies.org/newhampshire/

Rachel Wachman can be reached at rwachman@cmonitor.com