Cops and Kids Whiffle Ball Match

On Friday, July 22, 2022, Hope Hohenwald hosted their second annual Cops and Kids Whiffle Ball Match where kids play a game of whiffle ball against HPD Officers, Sheriff Deputies and even a Tennessee Highway Patrolman.

The first year they played, a few law enforcement officers showed up, but this year they wanted more. So the kids took to social media and posted a video challenging the cops to meet them on the diamond.

While "Separate Ways" by Journey played in the background, the kids could be seen practicing for the match and putting war paint on their faces. At the end of the video, the full team is assembled as one pointed his bat at the camera and said, "The donut shop's closed. Time to get served on the field."

Then the day finally came and the Hope team was prepared. They spray painted their own uniforms to say "HOPE" on the front and duct taped their numbers to the back. Ooh La La was there to serve cool refreshments and Hope Hohenwald staff set up their own ESPN announcer table fully equipped with a soundtrack for the players to run out to.

Prior to this, they had no idea how many officers would show up until they were on the field and the cops showed up one by one. Robbie Hooks, Kalum Halfacre, Trevor Osborne, Shy Reeves, Robert Fransen, Bobby Clift, James Howard, Nick Reeves, Jordan Alkire, Brent Bridges and Shane McKnight all showed up on the field. Even City Mayor Danny McKnight showed up to be the law enforcement's first base coach.

The game was a close one the whole way through with the Hope kids scoring and the cops soon catching up behind them. Towards the end of the game, the cops were up 5 to 4 and a boy named Erionne Brown was up to bat.

The pitch came in and Brown came through for his team by turning his hit into a homerun as the law enforcement officers struggled to keep up. When Brown made it to the home plate, his teammates came running up to him, picked him up and cheered him on in his victory for the team. They were now tied five to five.

"Erionne has been loved on and celebrated here all summer long," said Hope Hohenwald CEO Tonya Woodward. "When he made the homerun and all the boys gathered around him and picked him up, there was not one dry eye from the adults. That was probably the star moment in the whole match."

Team Hope then scored again with the law enforcement officers soon to follow, making the game a tie. The teams went into a tie breaker where Team Hope's best hitter went against the cops' best hitter. Fortunately for law enforcement, and unfortunately for Team Hope, the cops won the tie breaker and earned the golden whiffle ball bat as their prize.

"We needed a neutral place to display the golden bat [for the public to view] and the Library has agreed to display it for the month of August," said Woodward, "After the bat is displayed, it'll come back [to Hope Hohenwald] for safe storage until next July when we can hopefully bring it back here."

The purpose of the Cops and Kids Whiffle Ball Match was a little more than just to have fun. "Really, the purpose behind it was to change mindsets. Some kids look at our law enforcement in a negative way and we wanted to bring those two groups together and foster good relationships by letting the kids see them on a human level by having fun with them."

Woodward said she was incredibly proud of all the kids and law enforcement who participated in the game. She was especially proud of the staff who helped to set it up and who helped all summer long during their 15th Summer Camp Program.

"This year was our 15th year of hosting a summer camp. We had a great, great staff.. Some were high schoolers, some college students and some of us who are older and have been here forever," said Woodward. "I try to hire people who have a passion for certain areas so that they can share that like Cole Farr helped [teach/coach] football and baseball, Caden Anderson and Julian Jones taught basketball, Kayley Latham who is on Tammy's School of Dance team brought that, Haleigh DuPuis and Mya Woodward were our theater buffs,Cole Woodward taught soccer, and Maya and Austin Barber taught karate. They're both black belts so when they taught karate, it was true karate. So if these kids ever wanted to participate in any of these sports, they're well on their way."

Woodward reported that this year had been extremely successful for Hope Hohenwald in terms of numbers too with 165 kids attending this summer where it's normally around 120-130 kids. The Sanctuary helped the group house that many kids by lending their mini-gym to Hope Hohenwald.

"It was a great summer," said Woodward, "We had 45 middle schoolers enroll in summer camp which is huge to me because that's a difficult group to engage. A lot of them don't necessarily need child care, but they wanted to be here and wanted to come. So it was like a big pat on our backs."