The Adaptive Baseball Program is a Home Run

Ellie Hege (11) and Adaptive Baseball participant Paul at the game on September 7, 2025. Older members of with adaptive needs play a game after the younger members, and volunteers are paired with them to help them run the bases. “At a game, I worked with an older man named Paul, and he couldn’t see fully, but I got to help him run the bases, and that was a really rewarding experience,” said Hege. Photo Cred: Melissa Shore

Sofia Carmichael, Staff Writer for The Powderhorn 

Saturday is awaited all week. We all take time to relax and enjoy ourselves, but for our local adaptive needs community, it’s a time where they get to engage with others and play a game of Adaptive Baseball. 

Communities like Asheville have provided opportunities to these communities, such as Adaptive Baseball, for many years. However, when local Melissa Shore relocated from there to Boone, she noticed a decrease in opportunities for her sons who needed support. 

“My oldest son played adaptive baseball with the Asheville Parks and Recreation Program for about 3 or 4 years before we moved here to Boone,” said Shore. “And when we moved, I wanted to get him into the same sort of programs, but discovered that there weren’t any programs like that in Boone.”

With the lack of programs and home life responsibilities keeping her from work, Shore decided that she would take on the initiative to provide this program for our community. 

“After a couple of years of trying to get involved in the community and sharing that this is a great program that we experienced, nobody seemed to be picking up on what I was trying to motivate them to do,” said Shore. “I had two special needs children and realized I didn’t have the support for their care to be able to get into a job, so I had to be a stay-at-home mom. I was at home and thought, ‘I’m going to start this program because I’ve been involved in it. I know how it runs and works, and I don’t see why I can’t just do it myself.’”

Starting was simpler than you would think. All it took was a bank account, finding community businesses to support, and reaching out to the local Parks and Recreation Department to help supply the equipment and fields. But the most important part was finding the participants. 

“It was just a process of getting in touch with the right people to provide the support and the physical space that we needed,” said Shore. “And it was just a matter of getting word out into the community. Our first season was in the spring of 2013, and we had a good 30-35 players sign up for the first season. So I thought that was a good start.”

Originally, only younger members of the adaptive needs community were participants, but as the program gained traction, they were able to expand and give opportunities to older members. 

“We were consistent for many years, and we started to get some interest from adult group homes in the area,” said Shore. “And when they came on and wanted to play, our numbers went up to over 50 and more.”

Everyone from local coaches to App State students to even students from the high school across the community comes together to help make these games the best they can possibly be.  

“We have a lot of local volunteers that take some of the lead positions like the coaches and the coordinators, and they’re the consistent people that come back every season and help make it happen,” said Shore. “People are familiar with it, the longer we have been doing it, but we tend to have a lot of volunteers from the university. But what is great about that is there are a lot of students in different majors that work with this special population, and they want that kind of experience.”

This program has gained a lot of attention from students at our high school, and many of them have started to volunteer both through clubs and individually. 

“I have a little brother with special needs, and I help out with a lot of special needs service activities, and it's one of my favorite things to do," said Stacy Eggers, junior.  “I was reaching out, and this is one thing I found online.”

From helping at concessions to being a base buddy to being a cheerleader, there are a lot of ways to get involved in this program. 

“I was a cheer captain one week, and we had pompoms and everything, and we cheered really loud, and we came up with our own chants,” said Ellie Hege, a junior at Watauga. “I was also a player buddy with a girl named Clara and helped her run the bases.” 

Communities can often overlook certain groups of people, but Shore and every volunteer who helps make the Adaptive Baseball program possible are helping make sure this is one less group we don’t shine a light on. 

“This is a really important group of people that are sometimes forgotten too frequently, so I think giving them an opportunity to do things the same way is really important,” said Hege. “It speaks to our community and where they have our priorities, and it’s just something I want to be a part of.”

Volunteers feel the light when they help out at these events, from seeing how grateful the players are and how much they are enjoying connecting with others and just playing a fun game.

“The most rewarding part is making them smile and have a good time, since a lot of them don’t get a lot of fun things to do,” said Eggers. “And even if they don’t say thank you themselves, you know that it's important and valuable.”

While this is a rewarding experience for all the volunteers, it is even more rewarding for the individuals who are given these opportunities. 

“At our second game this season, there was a group of our adult players that came from a group home, and they were told that there were two more games in the season, and they were just so excited that they were going to be able to come back and keep playing,” said Shore.

With each year, more and more people in our community are getting involved in the Adaptive Baseball games. These programs are so important for individuals from the adaptive needs community, and for others to gain awareness and get involved. 

“We have so many players that sign up, so it’s just proof that we have a big special needs population in the area and they need an outlet to get out and socialize with people and to have recreational activities,” said Shore. “It’s important just being able to connect with people and feel part of a team.”