By Madison Butkus
Hometown Weekly Reporter
Baseball season is back in full swing, with the Boston Red Sox hosting their home opener recently. In honor of this, the Walpole Council on Aging (COA) hosted a “Take Me Out To The Ballgame” event at the South Street Center.
Seniors gathered together sporting their favorite Red Sox/baseball apparel, including hats, jerseys, t-shirts, jackets, and more. Upon entering the building, everyone was welcomed with the delicious smell of freshly popped popcorn and ball park franks.
Students from Blessed Sacrament School, who are a part of the Palmetto Consulting’s Middle School Leadership and Service Academy, helped serve seniors their hot dogs, popcorn, condiments, and soft drinks. Towards the end of the event, they additionally handed out some ice cream sandwiches for all to enjoy.
Throughout the hour, these students could also be seen going from table to table, discussing different baseball topics with the seniors and asking if anyone had played baseball before. They also conducted a fun baseball trivia game where seniors could win prizes of either Cracker Jacks or a candy bar.
Before starting this game, Program Coordinator of Palmetto Leadership, Alex, went on to introduce the students and tell seniors a little about what they do as a group. “We do leadership training,” Alex stated, “during the school week and we try to get out as much as we can. We love doing service trips as much as we can. We started coming to the Walpole COA about a year and half ago and it always feels like we are receiving more than we are giving because we always have such a great time here. So we are always excited to come back. Last year one of the things that we did was baseball themed trivia and it was a major ‘hit,’ so we decided to run it back this year again.”
With that, the kids each took turns asking baseball trivia questions out to the crowd of seniors, and whoever raised their hand first and got the answer correct got to choose whichever prize they wanted. It was easy to see just how much fun all the seniors had throughout this event and how many of them were some major baseball fans!
When trivia was not being played, different baseball and Boston themed songs could be heard playing in the background, many of which the seniors sang along with. This event was another major success and all are hopeful that the Palmetto Leadership group returns yet again to the Walpole COA.
