Sanborn Central senior Parker Ettswold has been a member of a baseball team since he was first eligible to play at the age of 6. He has worked hard every year since to build his skills and versatility for the sport he loves and to be the best teammate and player he can be. Because of that passion for the game, he decided to host a baseball skills camp to fulfill his senior project requirement and help area youth strengthen their skills, too.

On Saturday, Oct. 18, a total of 58 kids, boys and girls, showed up at the Letcher baseball field to take part in Ettswold’s camp. Not all attended at once, as Ettswold broke the kids up into two age groups of kindergarten through fourth grade as the younger group and fifth through eighth grade as the older group. Each group had a 90-minute session where they rotated through three stations – hitting, infield and outfield. Ettswold had several helpers with instructing and practicing, including Woonsocket coach Trey Weber; Will Henry, a pitcher for Augustana University; Riley Rothschadl and Cory Schilling, both outfielders for Augustana University; and Jason Nell, a 25-year coach at the high-school and collegiate level who has also hosted and helped at various baseball academies and coached summer league teams. 

Each kid who signed up to attend the camp paid 20 dollars, with the money being donated to Sanborn Central to help purchase items needed for their PE program. The fee included a camp T-shirt for each attendee, as well. 

Ettswold was very happy with the success of his camp. He stated that waiting until October to have the camp was one of the difficult parts of organizing the project. “I would say one of my biggest challenges was the scheduling, making sure that it wouldn’t be cold outside and that the day I picked worked for my helpers. If I could change anything, I would have done my camp earlier in the fall, not so late.” However, he said that his favorite part of putting the camp together was seeing the kids having fun while learning about the fundamentals of baseball, which made the work it took to put together the camp all worth it.  

…See a picture in this week’s issue of the Sanborn Weekly Journal!