STUART, Fla. — This week, a baseball league that aims to bring a sense of community will kick off in Stuart.
Trevor Sherrard and his wife have an 8-year-old nonverbal son and admit it's hard to find activities in Martin County for kids with disabilities.
The family noticed their son loved baseball and enrolled him in a Miracle League program.
"The Miracle League in Palm Beach County, what I saw there with my own two eyes with my son, is that the community showed up," Trevor Sherrard, the co-founder of The Miracle League of Martin County, said. "What would happen is my son would round third base and he'd started heading for home, and you would hear just this thunderous applause. Everyone would start going, 'yeah,' and it's honestly life-changing to a parent with a special needs child."
The Miracle League was created in 2000 to allow children with disabilities to play baseball. The organization has been a hit, expanding to more than 350 fields across the U.S. and Canada.
For the Sherrard family, the only issue they faced was the commute from Martin County to Palm Beach County.
"There would have to be hundreds if not thousands of children that are like my son, who don't have that opportunity to travel and hour every single day to go play baseball," Sherrard said.
The family spent months talking with leaders of The Miracle League and Martin County.
After gaining the needed sponsors, the family announced on social media that The Miracle League would now open in Martin County at Sailfish Park.
"It's great that we need to build more opportunities in Martin County for this specific population," parent Chandra Rivers said. "We honestly are growing, and we need more support in the community to have these kinds of opportunities."
Rivers is the mother of a non-verbal child who also has epilepsy and said her entire family is set to watch her boy play Thursday.
"Our whole family is looking forward to it," Rivers said. "Bodhi's nana is going to be here early, so we can ride together. I teach at Martin County High School, and I have several students who are volunteering."
Currently, the league has 32 kids registered to play for two teams, and Sherrard said it plans to expand in the coming years.