Kudos to the Yankees for hosting this very special event and for its entire Hope Week initiative. You can learn more about Hope Week and the Yankees’ other community efforts at http://newyork.yankees.mlb.com/nyy/community/index.jsp#mentoring.  Below is an excerpt, with the link to the full article, from Barbara Barker’s article in Newsday on July 26th, about the very special Hope Week event that had to take place at night.

“It was 2 in the  morning, and a soft, warm rain fell on the outfield of Yankee Stadium. The wet weather lent an almost surreal sheen to the after-hours on-the-field carnival that started late Thursday night after the Yankees’ win over Oakland.

While most of the Bronx slept, the kids of Camp Sundown played in the rain until 4 a.m. with select Yankees players. Some took batting practice thrown by A.J. Burnett. Others watched a magician perform card tricks with Jose Molina. One camper, Meghan Fruchter of East Meadow, posed with Jorge Posada as her mother took pictures with her phone.

“It’s a magic night,” camp director Caren Mahar said. “These are kids who rarely get to play ball with anyone because there’s no one to play with in the middle of the night. Now, here they are playing catch with the Yankees.”

Camp Sundown, located in Craryville, N.Y., is all about the night – because it is deadly for most of its campers to be outside during the day.

Mahar and her husband founded the camp for people with xeroderma pigmentosum – or XP, as the campers refer to it – after their daughter Katie was diagnosed with the genetic disease 14 years ago. On Thursday night, they drove a dozen campers and their families three hours to the Stadium for the game and postgame carnival thrown just for them by the Yankees.”  (The full article can be found at http://www.newsday.com/sports/baseball/yankees/brightening-their-night-at-yankee-stadium-1.1326166)