Two Palm Beach County nonprofits are expanding youth softball with affordable, accessible programs

On any given Tuesday or Thursday night in the fall, you can expect to see nearly 300 young athletes playing softball at Lake Charleston Park in western Palm Beach County. Two local nonprofits are giving more young athletes the chance to play the sport, with a goal of expanding softball in a way that is affordable and accessible to all.One of those programs is the VSA Lady Lions, a travel softball program whose under-14s team runs a practice packed full of every element softball has to offer from the tee to home plate."Our normal practice starts with stretching, throwing," Coach Ed Kunzweiler said. "They do a lot of defensive drills. They run a lot of plays. Then we usually do some hitting off coaches, and then we usually try to finish with some live hitting," Kunzweiler said.Coach Kunzweiler said when he started at the club, they had just two travel teams. "Now we're at 8 or 9. So it's grown pretty substantially," Kunzweiler said.He said the VSA Lady Lions are the largest women's trav