Granny Basketball proceeds to benefit Special Learning Center

Basketball as you know it will not be played at Calvary Lutheran High School at 2 p.m. Saturday.

There will be a basketball bouncing on a wooden court, shot at a backboard from which a metal rim and net will be protruding. Scoring will occur when the aforementioned ball falls through the aforementioned net-adorned metal rim.

Otherwise, the Granny Basketball game being hosted at Calvary Lutheran as a fundraiser for the Special Learning Center (SLC) is just all about fun. Just ask anyone involved.

The Jefferson City Kiwanis Club-sponsored Key Club at Calvary Lutheran is hosting the Granny Basketball game for the second year. The game will pit a team of Grannies versus a team of staffers from the SLC. The center is a 30-year-old agency that provides services for children with developmental delays and disabilities.

Last year's Granny Basketball match and a Color Run that preceded it netted the SLC some $5,000. This year, the Key Clubbers hope to top that sum to help the SLC fund a new intensive therapy program. The Color Run, for those unenlightened about that particular form of entertainment, features folks running and walking 1.5 miles while getting "poofed" with colored substances. Like Granny Basketball, promoters at the SLC, the Key Club and Calvary Lutheran High School said the Color Run must be witnessed to be appreciated.

As expected, the Granny Basketball game involves special rules. The SLC team members will have their dominant arms disabled and have mitts on their off hands. They cannot run, they cannot jump. They will, however, have a ringer on their team in the presence of 6-foot-2 SLC graduate Lindsey Alewel, now at Jefferson City High School, on their team. Debbie Hamler, director of the SLC, is hoping Alewel will help even up the odds against the Grannies.

Calvary Lutheran senior Jordan Duenckel, the Key Club treasurer, and a mover and shaker in the promotion of the Granny Basketball game, said the members of the club have siblings and young friends attending or graduates of the SLC. "We have a special place in our hearts for that place," Duenckel said.

Entertainment for the Granny Basketball game will be provided by another SLC graduate, Samuel Luetkemeyer, a self-taught keyboardist who will sync his playlist with the action or inaction on the court.

Denise Krider, a Calvary Lutheran teacher and pivotal off-the-court player in the Granny Basketball game, said the school was expecting another positive response to the fundraiser from the community.

"This whole area is very generous, the whole Cole County area, in supporting good causes like the Special Learning Center," Krider said, who is the faculty sponsor for the Key Club. Tom Mentzer is the Kiwanian who serves as advisor to the Key Club.