Casey's Clubhouse Back in Action

The Final Week

It is unbelievable how fast this semester has gone, and especially crazy how fast my time with the Miracle League of the South Hills has gone. Thinking back on the past 14 weeks, I have gained so much knowledge, have met so many people, and have learned so much about myself. I feel incredibly lucky for finding this organization, so much so that I plan to continue working with them over the summer. 

This past week, Tim and I rode out to the field to unload some boxes and get the place ready for opening day coming up in just a few weeks. A new, temporary storage shed was built for us to keep jerseys, hats, and the announcer equipment. There are some major plans in the works for an update to the seating at the Miracle League Field, and I am so excited for the plans to be finalized. 

The playground was already buzzing with the nice weather Pittsburgh has been having, and I cannot wait to see the crowds once we hit Opening Day 2019. I cannot express my love for this organization, and all who are involved. I encourage all Point Park students to consider this internship. It will be a once in a lifetime experience, I promise. 

Pulling Rosters, Creating Memories

Week 12

In week 12, we are continuing to plan for the 2019 Spring Season. We had an amazing turn out so far on sign-ups for both players and buddies. In just a few weeks, we have over 300 players registered, and over 200 buddies. We ran a fun promotion for early registration that went over really well, so we are thinking about running another sign-up promotion in the next few weeks to create some more buzz and get more players and buddies registered.

This past week, I have been working on the back end of the website, pulling registered players and assigning them to our 22 teams in the league. This is a much more tedious task than you would think, because there are 3 age groups, and two different competition levels within the Miracle League of the South Hills. I have to match each child/adult with their corresponding age level and ability level, and on top of that, many of the players and buddies have recommendations on which team they want to be on, and sometimes a specific person they want to be on the same team as.

We try to do our best matching the players and buddies with what they want, but sometimes we need to fill spots on other teams. In that case, we have had to reach out to a few families to ask if they would be okay being on a different team. These conversations do not usually go as well as we would like, and it's definitely one of the struggles of running an organization like this. 

Regardless, all of our athletes, families, and volunteers are eager to get the season started, and so are we!

The 2019 Pirates Charities All-Star Game

Week 12

The Miracle League is in a good place right now. We have everything planned out for the next few weeks, and we are anxiously waiting for the 2019 Spring season to begin.

On Tuesday this week, I got to attend a meeting with the Executive Director of the Miracle League, and two representatives from Pittsburgh Pirates Charities to pan out the Miracle League All-Star game that we will be hosting at our field in Upper St. Clair, PA this summer. We talked about the entire weekend, from the day of registration to Sunday evening when we have to shuttle the players and families to the airport to go back home.

This is exactly the kind of work I want to do upon graduation, so being a part of this meeting was awesome, and I learned a lot. We talked about food for each day, player appearances, mascot appearances, a timeline of events, transportation, and the price of tickets.

There are multiple events intertwined within this one weekend, so there are a lot of details that need to be drawn out. It's great for us to pair up with such an accomplished organization like Pirates Charities, because they had a lot of suggestions and ideas on how to best make this work for everyone involved. 

There will be a "fantasy camp" for the athletes to learn from the Pirates players, a Homerun derby, a day at PNC Park followed by a Saturday Pirate game, and 4 all-star games coached by some of Pittsburgh's famous MLB players. 

It is going to be a lot of fun and I am looking forward to continue working on this outstanding event.