The New York Yankees and Major League Baseball are giving one Bronx middle school $50,000 to go toward a “sensory room” designed for kids on the autism spectrum.
It came after students at the One World World Middle School in Edenwald pitched in to help the Bronx Bombers redesign Yankee Stadium’s own space for fans with sensory processing needs.
“That’s when we realized they didn’t have the facilities they were helping us build,” said Haley Swindal, granddaughter to legendary Yankees’ owner George Steinbrenner and the team’s community affairs ambassador.
Swindal, the stepmother to a neurodivergent daughter, who spoke during a VIP-studded event at the school Monday announcing the gift, explained the franchise looked for a way to return the favor for the students.
“They kept coming up with great ways the room could be made better,” principal Patricia Wynne said of the middle schoolers.
“In the end, we put all those together and we put our own finishing touches on them and the Yankees did a fantastic job.”
Sensory rooms are designed to be havens for people on the spectrum or those who are neurodivergent and can be overstimulated by bright lights, loud noises and packed crowds in places like sports stadiums and schools.
But Yankee Stadium’s own sensory room failed to comfort Valentina Lucre, 13, an eighth grader at One World who found its stark, dark blue interior “upsetting.”
“The importance of a sensory room is to allow people to have a safe space to unwind and self-regulate with solutions they think are best for them,” she said. “This can help influence others that our feelings are valid and that we all have emotions that are just as important as the next person’s.”
Lucre wasn’t alone among her peers at One World.
“They brought the students in on that first visit and they said, “This is not going to work!” said Meisha Porter, the city’s former schools chancellor and now a visiting fellow at The Center for Education Innovation.
“It was just a blank room.”
The Yankees ended up taking the public school kids’ feedback to heart, after reaching out to Wynne as the 2024 MLB season dawned and asking for her students’ help.
Wynne said the Yankees provided students and parents with tickets, and the families kept coming back with suggestions.
The redesigned room, unveiled during the American League Division Series’ Game 1, now sports improved lights, textured walls, stress balls, toys and student artwork.
Lucre, for her part, suggested the room be painted in soothing lighter colors. She also contributed three paintings.
“One is a blend of colors to show how my mind functions, to bring a sense of security, to show that all emotions are valid,” she said.
The event announcing the sensory room donation for One World, a 2024 World Series Legacy Project, was also attended by Roberto Clemente Award winner Salvador Pérez, a catcher and first baseman for the Kansas City Royals.
