A northwest Iowa man played catch for 24 hours straight to help people with disabilities take part in sports and recreation.
Kevin Negaard is the founder of the Miracle League in Sioux City. The league includes a playground, splash pad, and rubber-surfaced baseball field at Riverside Park.
Negaard decided to throw and catch for one whole day to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the organization and to raise money to resurface the all-inclusive play area.
“I think for our community, it’s really important for our parents and our athletes, it’s incredibly important,” Negaard says. “I just see these parents fighting all the time to get what their kids need and for us to be able to say, ‘Hey, you don’t have to fight anything, like, your kids are the priority here.’ We built this for them.”
Negaard started his quest Monday afternoon and hoped to raise $50,000 to help refurbish the Miracle League sports complex.
A couple of years ago, he spent a year playing catch with more than 2,000 people in five different counties and raised more than $370,000 for the league.
(Sheila Brummer, Iowa Public Radio)