A smile speaks a thousand words…Camp introduces special needs children to world of football

Published 10:34 am Tuesday, October 11, 2022

By Ivan Sanders

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STAR CORRESPONDENT
The sounds of the excitement of football flooded the field on Sunday at Citizens Bank Stadium but it wasn’t the sound created by the high school, middle school, or even youth league teams that were abuzz.
It was a group of special needs children attending the first ever Dream Team Adapted Football Camp where 30 campers along with over 80 volunteers came out to introduce those in attendance to the game of football with the thrills of making tackles, scoring touchdowns, and making new friends.
Originally scheduled earlier, Hurricane Ian took its toil on the first camp as with the date change, the original 60 campers who had signed up with over 120 volunteers were narrowed down as many school districts are on Fall Break.
That didn’t stop the memories that were created by these athletes who were able to experience something that many boys and girls take for advantage and that was playing the game of football.
Jessica Lenden-Holt along with Ryan Witten and Forrest Holt had the vision to make the camp a reality for these children. Witten operates Witten Huddle in Elizabethton while Lenden-Holt is a speech therapist with Sidekick Therapy Partners and Holt is the Athletic Director at Elizabethton High School but formerly was a Special Education Teacher and coach.
“Ryan came to us and said we have not had a Score Foundation camp in a while and he asked me what I thought about having a camp for kids with special needs and I said I was all in,” said Lenden-Holt. So Ryan and I put our heads together and came up with the Dream Team Adapted Football Camp. “We ended up with 30 campers and over 80 volunteers so considering we had to change the date with everyone’s fall break and the weather we will take it.”
Campers came from as far west as Knoxville and there was actually one camper signed up from South Carolina prior to the storm moving through that area. Lenden-Holt said that after Sunday’s camp, there is hope that the camp will become an annual event with more sponsors allowing for even more campers.
“We would love to make it an annual tradition,” said Lenden-Holt. “We had a few sponsors and we would love to see that grow so that we can open it up to more campers. We did promote it as come one, come all so anyone could register without any kind of restrictions.”
Those who came out to lend a helping hand included the Elizabethton High School football team and coaches, the Unaka girl’s basketball team, the varsity and junior varsity cheerleaders from Elizabethton High School, the entire Milligan College baseball team, and students from ETSU.
” It was an incredible group of volunteers,” said Lenden-Holt.” The campers were scoring touchdowns, tackling, and the volunteers went flying when they were tackled.”
At the conclusion of the camp, Lenden-Holt said that was an outpouring of appreciation from the families of the children who made it known that the day was special not just because of football but because it gave their children an opportunity to a door that had never been opened before.
“We heard from so many families that this was the first experience their high school child had,” said Lenden-Holt. “We just take so much for granted. And you think about here is a 15-year-old that never has had an opportunity to participate in any type of organized event regardless if it was a sport or not. They were just so excited. Some of these kids can’t speak – I would say around half that had limited verbal skills that had such big smiles.”
As the final whistle sounded to end the camp, the planning process for next year began to formulate as the field was covered in a sea of smiles both by the campers and those who had taken the time to make the  Dream Team Adapted Football Camp a fun day for everyone involved.

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