Freedom Church brings back Challengers

Published 1:07 pm Saturday, May 31, 2025

Everybody’s a winner just for being on the field beside Freedom Church in Milledgeville during the spring months.

What started in 2019 returned to the church in 2025, and that’s the Challenger League. It consisted of 36 players ages 5 to 18 with physical and cognitive disabilities making up four teams, and they were guided through the basics of T-ball (or baseball, or softball if you please) – hitting the ball with a bat and running the bases back to home plate – with the help of 37 volunteers.

The volunteers, which consist mainly of high school and college students, are also known as Buddies. Nobody was keeping score in this non-competitive environment except to see how much fun everyone was having.

Freedom Church first did a Challenger League back in 2019 under the direction of Michelle Truitt. The league returned this year, and the ‘torch’ of leadership was passed to Yngrid Coelho. She is the director the church’s Gifted Hands Ministry.

Gifted Hands is how Freedom Church serves children ages 4 to 14 with disabilities and/or sensory processing disorders. Part of Gifted Hands is holding a Sunday morning small group for them during regular worship hours.

This spring’s Challenger League began April 17, and they played every Thursday for six weeks. Coelho used two ways to describe running the Challenger League: “Always stressful” and “Awesome.”

At the end of the final day on May 22, all players and Buddies went indoors as Coelho called out every player’s name so they could get their awards and then enjoy a picnic meal.