Meet Sammy Overton from Can Play, a Summer VISTA from West Des Moines, Iowa. As a youth growing up in one of the largest schools in the Greater Des Moines area, Sammy took full advantage of the opportunities and resources available to him. From peewee soccer to club/high school swim teams and cross-country, sports were great for meeting new friends and practicing self-care from academics. He has always had a passion for sports and shared, “I think it’s a great way to spread positivity, so involving as many people as I can so they can participate and feel good about physical activity is a big goal of mine.”  He brings his optimism and energy towards his experience serving at Can Play.

At Can Play, the work Overton does focuses on three main ideas: Inclusion, Community, and Play. “We provide several different programs throughout the week that introduce different activities and sports to our community. I can be doing soccer one week, but doing baseball camp the next week.” Can Play provides adapted and no-cost recreational programming to the Greater Des Moines area. Both of these programs seek to provide access to thousands of underserved youth in central Iowa with different barriers of play including but not limited to: financial, physical, cognitive, emotional, and chronic healthcare challenges. 

“We use these programs to both inspire and empower those within our community to play by being able to ensure that everyone has access to play together as one” 

Can Play’s mission is to remove barriers to enable play within communities and diminish the participation gap affecting underprivileged youth so all may have the opportunity to play no matter what. The organization’s unique approach of providing a variation of sports programs each week allows youth to discover their interests. Overton mentions, “I can stay busy each week jumping from doing, for example, adapted baseball to wheelchair basketball, and everything in between.” As someone who was involved with many different sports and activities as a youth, Overton wants to be able to provide that opportunity to others that may not have been able to otherwise. 

Being able to provide different types of engaging activities and spaces to play not only brings prevalence of adapted sports within his community, but across the country too. He states, “We like to educate the public about these [challenges] too… bringing awareness to this [barrier of play] should help decrease the participation gap in sports and recreation that ends up affecting underprivileged youth on all sorts of levels, from physical, social, mental, and developmental.” As awareness within the community increases, more opportunities to play broaden for underserved youth.

“I have been able to see first hand what all goes on into developing our programs here at Can Play and see how play can be altered so everybody can be included”  

Overton’s work as a VISTA allowed him to experience a role he did not think he was capable of before. He likes to stay busy so when starting his VISTA position at Can Play, Overton made sure to communicate to his supervisor to keep him busy. As he takes on fulfilling work responsibilities, Overton also makes sure to fully enjoy his busy work life. He reminisces, “One of my favorite days of programming this summer was when a professional disc golf group visited and taught our group how to play disc golf. It was a sport I was completely unfamiliar with, but had a lot of fun learning about and seeing our participants become successful with.”

Overton continues to stay active by swimming and running, preparing for an upcoming triathlon as well as playing pickup basketball with friends and joining an intramural volleyball team. He is also a big Denver Broncos fan! Aside from sports, he found himself involved with show choir, acapella, and musicals during high school.

As a graduating senior from the University of Iowa, Overton is looking forward to receiving his Bachelor’s degree in Health and Human Physiology with a minor in Psychology. Down the road, Overton dreams to achieve his next goal of obtaining a master’s or doctorate in Occupational Therapy. His experience from Can Play has provided insight into his field of interest, “I am very grateful that I went through the Summer VISTA experience to help make that possible”. 

Tan and Sammy will serve as Up2Us Sports Summer VISTAs from June - August 2023 thanks to support from AmeriCorps.