St. Louis, Missouri (NAPSI) - Here’s intriguing news for parents, their young athletes and anyone interested in America’s past and present:
The world’s largest youth sports organization is celebrating its Diamond Anniversary. From its humble beginnings in 1939 in Williamsport, Pennsylvania with 30 players to today’s reach of more than 2.4 million players and 1 million adult volunteers in every U.S. state and more than 80 other countries, Little League has continued to thrive by sticking to its fundamental values-community, family, friendly competition, and relationships that last a lifetime.
To celebrate, the organization is rolling out an exciting slate of programs beginning with the Little League Big Legacy Project. This creates a unique, digital baseball mosaic with images spanning 75 years of Little League memories. People are encouraged to submit photos to LittleLeagueBigLegacy.com through June 5. For each photo submitted, Little League will donate $1, up to $50,000, to Pitch In for Baseball (pifb.org), a nonprofit organization that helps provide equipment to baseball and softball programs in need. The mosaic will be unveiled on June 6. For everyone wanting to share their Little League memories on social media, the official hashtag for the Big Legacy Project is #LittleLeagueBigLegacy.
“Over the course of our rich 75-year history, through the many life lessons learned on the diamonds, from notable athletes to incredible entertainers, writers, philanthropists and citizens, Little League Baseball and Softball can proudly say it develops major-league people,” said Stephen D. Keener, Little League President and CEO. “We are so thrilled to be celebrating the 75th Anniversary of Little League and look forward to continuing our legacy of helping children develop strong character on and off the field.”
The anniversary will be celebrated at the 7,000 leagues around the world, and the millions of volunteers, alumni, families and players are encouraged to share in the celebration on social media with the official hashtag: #LittleLeague75. This year also marks other major milestones, with the celebrations of the 40th Anniversary of Little League Softball, 25th Anniversary of the Little League Challenger Division and 15th Anniversary of the Little League Urban Initiative.
For more information, visit www.LittleLeague.org or see facebook.com/LittleLeague or twitter.com/LittleLeague.
