In a scene seemingly straight out of a Hallmark movie or Gilmore Girls, an entire community gathered at New Hanover Community Park to celebrate the official opening of a newly-renovated ball hockey rink on the park's premises.
Pizza and water ice were being served as people weaved through the Flyers-themed lawn games and giant inflatables shaped like a Flyers player and Gritty. Orange and black balloon pillars stood on either side of a podium on the ball hockey rink, as Flyers alumni and representatives milled about.
This wasn't any boring township event—this was the culmination of over a year of hard work and an astounding amount of ambition from two young girls determined to keep hockey alive in their community.
Natalie Van Druff and Lilly Walter heard that there were plans to turn the park's old ball hockey rink—an unsafe asphalt surface surrounded by a chain-link fence—into pickleball courts.
They simply couldn't allow that to happen.
After rallying the support of their community, Van Druff and Walter (who are just about to start middle school, mind you) made a presentation to their township leaders, urging them to keep the ball hockey rink. It worked. But renovating the space into one that was safe and playable for the community wouldn't be a cheap undertaking.
That's where Flyers Charities steps in.
