Let All the Children Play hosts free sports clinic at Hofstra

The nonprofit charitable foundation focused on children with disabilities and their able-bodied peers, Let All the Children Play, has teamed up with the Hofstra University Athletics Department to bring a new kind of sports camp to the community.
   
Together, both organizations are putting on a free clinic on Aug. 22 at Hofstra that is all-inclusive, which means children with or without disabilities are welcome.
   
The clinic will be run by the men’s and women’s soccer and basketball teams and coaches. Following the basketball and soccer clinic, the participants can partake in an autograph session with the Hofstra athletes and coaches.
   
This is the first big event for Let All the Children play, an organization that for the last four years has been working on building a universally accessible playground in Eisenhower Park. The playground will include adapted structures, ramps and swings. It is designed for children with and without disabilities and adults with disabilities. Like the playground, the sports clinic is also focused around being all-inclusive.
   
Heidi Loiacono, director of Outreach and the project manager for the athletic clinic, stresses that Let All the Children Play is an organization focused around sport and play for youths with and without disabilities.  The sports clinic will include all children, and is designed to show the community that children with disabilities can fit in.
   
“We really want to show all people that kids with disabilities are kids first, and their disabilities are second,” said David Weingarten, executive director for Let All the Children Play.   
   
Weingarten said he believes the clinic will bring social awareness to the community and it will impact typical children as much as it does for children with disabilities. He emphasized that the community needs to see that all children, with and without disabilities, can play sports and fit in together.