From the Gym to the Ice, How a Donut Supports Dreams

By: Callum Denault- Special Olympics Canada athlete and staff member

As athletes, we usually try and lay off the sweets, but we’re always happy to make a charitable exception. 

Not only are Special Olympics Donuts a delicious treat, they also support a great cause. Each year, for a weekend in January, you can visit your local Tim Hortons and 100% of the proceeds from every Special Olympics Donut sold will support community sport programs for athletes with intellectual and developmental disabilities across Canada.

Like many charities, Special Olympics relies on good media exposure to drum up support for all the work the organization does. Unlike a lot of other charities, the athletes who benefit most from Special Olympics programming are also front and centre in our marketing.

Just ask Léo Soudin and Julia Romualdi, who starred in the 2025 commercial for Special Olympics Donut campaign with Tim Hortons! They flew out to Toronto for a day of shooting, but even after that they still did more to promote the campaign, with both being interviewed by Special Olympics Canada and a variety of media outlets across Canada. Julia said she had five interviews in one week, including with ETalk Anchor Lainey Liu, TSN’s Digital Sports Centre host Jesse Pollock, her local town’s newspaper Timmins Today, and CBC Radio Canada.

 “Any type of media is important to promote Special Olympics,” said the 28-year-old athlete.

Léo is also used to being in the limelight, even if he is too humble to admit it. Recently, he joined his mother Shelley in being interviewed by RDS’s Michel Laprise, also to promote the Tim Hortons campaign supporting Special Olympics.

A 25-year-old athlete with Down syndrome living in Quebec, Léo is always looking for more sports to participate in ever since he joined Special Olympics 13 years ago. He currently stays active in snowshoeing, soccer, basketball, golf, athletics, indoor hockey, alpine, and cross country skiing - in addition to even more sports! 

Léo’s main sport is powerlifting, or at least, that is what he will be competing in during the upcoming Special Olympics Quebec Provincial Summer Games. Three times a week, Léo dedicates a day to improving his performance in one of powerlifting’s three main events: bench press, deadlift, and squat. This includes both weekly practices with his Special Olympics team and some gym days outside of that. Following the advice of his coaches on The Cougars powerlifting team, Léo said his main goal is to focus on good lifting technique, so he can keep adding heavier weights safely.

Practicing good technique is also something that Julia talked about regarding her journey in figure skating. She said skating has a lot of components, having complicated athletic movements as well as more artistic elements similar to dance, all set to a song that an athlete chooses to do their solo routine to. Julia picked Fly by Avril Lavigne—which has a music video dedicated to Special Olympics—and her routine earned her a silver medal at the Special Olympics Canada Winter Games in 2015.

Julia’s hard work certainly paid off, given that she skated in Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir’s 2019 Rock The Rink Tour, and has also performed alongside other Olympic greats such as Patrick Chan and Elvis Stojko. Léo has also gotten to prove his capabilities to athletes outside of Special Olympics, as his mother Shelley explained that Special Olympics Quebec powerlifters join generic competitions which host separate divisions for neurotypical, able-bodied lifters. However, both Léo and Shelley were impressed with how welcoming the broader powerlifting community has been of Special Olympics athletes like Léo.

“It’s a beautiful example of inclusion,” said Shelley, “our athletes follow the same examples, get scored by the same judges, and have to get the right amount of judges to vote in their favour. The crowd is there and they encourage everybody.”

On top of everything else, both Léo and Julia won Athlete of the Year awards for 2020 and 2021, respectively. Leo earned his award for being active during the COVID-19 lockdown when in-person events had to be cancelled, by joining virtual Special Olympics Provincial Summer Games competitions held by Ontario and Quebec. Having once struggled with jumping jacks during the start of his career in track and field, Léo won gold for submitting a video of himself doing 100 push-ups. He also spent time helping his fellow athletes to stay healthy, active and connected in his role as an Athlete Leader, such as by sharing a healthy recipe using rice and tofu.

Julia’s award recognizes her journey as an Athlete Leader that saw her going to Berlin to present at the Global Congress of Inclusion about her efforts in bringing Special Olympics Unified Sports to Northern Ontario. She made a 35-minute PowerPoint presentation about the benefits of Unified Sports and how they can be run, before giving that presentation to three different high schools. One of those schools took off with their own Unified Sports programming and has invited another school of join them.

“It was an interesting place,” said Julia about her time in Berlin, “there was so much history, and we got to do a lot of sightseeing on top of watching the Special Olympics World Games.”

Despite all their accomplishments, Julia and Léo both said that the best memories of their time in Special Olympics have been the bonds they got to make with other people. When asked what his favourite medal—out of all the ones he earned—Leo picked two golds and one bronze he won at the Special Olympics Quebec Provincial Summer Games for track and field in 2022. This was his first time back to in-person competition since the COVID-19 lockdown, meaning he finally got to enjoy the “competitions, friends, and dances” that he had missed out on for 3 long years.

After she is done practice on Tuesdays, Julia stays at the rink to help teach youth athletes in Special Olympics’ FUNdamentals program. When she’s not playing sports, participating on SOO’s Board of Directors and Athlete Leadership Council, or working as a General Merchandise Associate at Walmart, she enjoys spending her family, best friend, and boyfriend. 

Julia and Léo are shining examples of what Special Olympics is all about—breaking barriers, building connections, and celebrating athletes of all abilities across Canada. Whether participating in their community, competing on the world stage, mentoring young athletes, or stepping into the spotlight to share their stories, they show us the real power of inclusion. 

This year, the Special Olympics Donut isn’t just a treat; it’s an opportunity to make a real difference. Every donut sold from January 31 to February 2 directly supports more than 42,000 Special Olympics athletes in community sport programs across the country.