HANCOCK – Michigan Special Olympics Area 39 has scheduled a movie night and silent auction fundraiser for Sat. April 18, from 6-9 p.m. at the Orpheum Theater/Fifth and Elm, at 426 Quincy Street in Hancock. The event is to support Special Olympics athletes.

The featured movie is based on a true story about a girl’s journey to self-esteem through Special Olympics. The movie, “Patrice,” is a documentary about a Special Olympics couple who want to get married, but confront many obstacles along the way.

Michael Behrmann and his wife, Naomi, are the co-directors for Area 39. Michael said Area 39 became active in July, 2025 and comprises five western U.P. counties: Houghton, Baraga, Keweenaw, Gogebic and Ontonagon.

“It’s a wonderful program for a lot of people,” he said.

Michael Behrmann said the mission for the program is to provide a year-round sports training and competition program for athletes with intellectual challenges.

The program started with one athlete, the Behrmanns’ daughter, who has been in the Special Olympics program for about 20 years. In just nine months, Area 39 has grown to 60 athletes between the Houghton and Ironwood hubs.

“Our area is so big, we really need to run a couple of training sites, because we can’t expect the people from Gogebic County to come all the way to Houghton,” he said. “So, we train in Houghton and we train in the Ironwood area.”

Behrmann said the program now has between 25 and 30 active coaches and volunteers who work with the athletes, including him and his wife.

“We started off with bowling last fall,” he said. “We had about 50 of our athletes participating between the two hubs.”

Bolwing lasted from September to November, then winter sports began, which were snowshoeing and basketball, Behrmann said.

“We took our delegation of athletes and coaches to the regional U.P. games in Marquette for snowshoe, then went to Traverse City for the Michigan state games,” said Behrmann.

The Houghton and the Ironwood basketball teams attended the regional tournament in Escanaba last month, where the teams were awarded gold medals.

Currently, athletes are training for swimming, track and field and bocce ball.

“We’re heading to the U.P. regionals for all of those, then state summer games in at Central Michigan University in Mount Pleasant, at the end of May,” Behrmann said.

Behrmann said they are trying to recruit more athletes, volunteers and coaches to help the program expand, but even with volunteers, fundraising is necessary to operate.

“While we do some state funding from Michigan Special Olympics, the bulk of our local program relies on local fundraising,” he said, “so we’re hoping that people will turn out to our movie night and silent auction on Saturday.”