Play ball! We’re proud to sponsor this Hanover Little League team’s Challenger Division. This program provides a safe place to play baseball!
Dustin B Levy, Hanover Evening Sun
Brad Dutterer believes it’s important for his 9-year-old daughter Kamdyn, who has Down syndrome, to be included in general population environments, like her elementary school class.
“We don’t really go out of our way to look for special things for Kamdyn to do,” Dutterer said. “We just try to make sure she’s involved in what other kids her age are doing.”
She once tried a special-needs ballet class, but Dutterer said it “just wasn’t her thing.”
A Little League team seemed like a good fit, but Dutterer wasn’t sure Kamdyn was at a place where she would be accepted onto a regular baseball team.
A team where the emphasis wasn’t on “winning or having a great batting average” would better suit Kamdyn’s needs, Dutterer said.
He signed Kamdyn up for the Little League Challenger Division in Southern York County before learning one existed closer to home.
This spring, Hanover Area Little League reintroduced a Challenger Division, the national nonprofit’s adaptive program for individuals with physical and intellectual challenges.
Since the league started in April, parents of the Hanover team remarked on the allure of a league where their children face less pressure to perform, and they receive support, not judgment, for their skills on the baseball diamond.
“I think this provides a safe place to play baseball,” Dutterer said. Read More >