JESSE NEILL

GAWLER & District College recently hosted a special education T-ball tournament with six schools from the Northern Suburbs participating in the event.
Event organiser Billy Vincent said the initiative was thanks to community support and one of the baseball players involved at his club, the Gawler Giants.
“We’re in our second year as a specialist baseball program at the Gawler Giants and we had a year 12 student, Luke Matthews, who participated in the program and wanted to know what else he could do,” he said.
“I mentioned to him that this tournament could be a possibility and he just picked it up and ran with it.
“He’s done a fantastic job and he’s highly organised – it’s an impressive feat to get six schools involved and I couldn’t be prouder of him.”
This is the first and only specialist T-Ball tournament in South Australia, however Mr Vincent hopes to make it an annual event.
“We want to do this every year with our year 12 students as part of their stage two integrated studies project, like Luke was able to do,” he said.
“We will hopefully grow it, as the feedback has been extremely positive.
“It just warms my heart to see kids with disabilities having fun and being included and able to have a go.
“They get to feel special and know that they too can be athletes, and to me that’s just awesome.”