MUSKEGON, Mich. — A Muskegon-based organization endowing children with special needs, sense of community and belonging via team sports recently revealed its upgraded headquarters.
13 ON YOUR SIDE profiled the effort to secure and renovate the building, now the Folkert Community Hub at 640 Seminole Road in Muskegon in December of 2018.
Several years, well-over $1-million later and now nearing completion, the project represents nothing short of a fresh start for ‘No More Sidelines.’
The upgraded facility features:
- Full-sized basketball court
- Soccer courts
- Volleyball courts
- Walk-around track
- Mezzanine viewing
- Concession stand
“It has been under constant renovation,” Cyndi Blair, one of the organization’s co-founders said of the Hub, which houses the newly renovated Andy Blair Sports Complex. “It’s been amazing.”
The effort’s origins stem from a simple request: a friend for Cyndi and Andy Blair’s daughter, Alivia.
“It's not the same for them, as it is with only other children,” Cyndi said. “When she was about 12, her verbalization was really, really minimal. But she could clearly tell me, I wanted a friend, and she didn't have it.”
Diagnosed with cerebral palsy, Alivia saw her four siblings attending friends’ birthday parties, sleepovers and playdates and wanted a sense of belonging all her own.
“I thought that if I started an organization, and I did it with sports, and I did it with teams, then they would have a sense to belong,” Cyndi related. “Really, that's what they wanted.”
And so, circa 2005, the family’s home became the first for the effort that would come to be known as ‘No More Sidelines.’
The group gave its original seven members – just like Alivia – the chance to interact socially and recreationally with other special needs children.
“I found very quickly, the parents of these children needed support,” Cyndi explained. “They wanted to sit on the bleachers. They wanted to sit in the auditoriums. They wanted to watch their kids perform and be with other parents, who are just in awe of watching their children.”
Around 500 children now wear the group’s logo.
Several additional chapters have since formed, including a Kent County and mid-Michigan location.
Yet, before work on the 20-thousand square foot ‘mother chapter’ could be completed…
“My husband passed away from cancer a few years ago and did not see the project finished, unfortunately,” she related. “He put a lot of time and energy and hours into making this happen. I wish he could be here.”
The complex itself now bears Andy’s name.
The marks left by her late-husband, Cyndi said, can be found throughout the renovated space and that the work they undertook together is only just beginning.
“They just need the chance to belong in our community,” she noted. “So if we give them the chance, and our community sees them in a different light, which is the reason for the hub, than this is needed everywhere.”
To learn more about ‘No More Sidelines,’ visit the organization’s website.
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