by European Softball Federation, www.europeansoftball.org
On Tuesday April 30th, the fields of Hoofddorp Pioneers in the Netherlands will be all about the battle against cancer. On this day, the Dutch Softball family will come together to raise money for the KWF. The KWF is a Dutch foundation that raises money to do research on cancer.
In 2012, Dutch baseball player Swen Huijer created the Baseball Against Cancer concept. After Baseball Against Cancer its succes, Ginger de Weert and Swen spoke to set up the same concept, but for softball players. Ginger her interest in setting it up for softball players all started with her father. Her father got diagnosed with cancer twice and they had the tough job to find someone to donate a kidney for him to survive. On Tuesday May 3rd, 2016, the very first Softball Against Cancer day was held and it was a big success. Ginger invited a lot of friends and National teammates to help her with the clinic for over 125 girls. That year, together with Baseball Against Cancer, they raised an amazing amount of €15.000! However, it’s never enough and the battle keeps going. In 2017 they did the exact same thing and even started their own line of merchandise. Until today, they raised €90.632 already!
With the event growing each year, this year’s Softball Against Cancer is promised to be a great one again. With instructors such as Dinet Oosting, Peter van Dalen, Saskia Kosterink, Rebecca Soumeru, Lindsey Meadows, Gonny Farley, Dutch Men’s National team players and many more, this is a great opportunity for young players to learn a lot, make new friends and just to have a great day. Even parents get involved in this day! Parents and other interested people can follow a clinic to become a scorer. If the clinics itself aren’t fun enough, the Dutch National Women’s and Men’s team will play an exhibition game against each other at the end of the day.