How play provides community, connection
How a red rubber ball changed Kevin Carroll’s life.
Kevin Carroll explains how a red rubber ball saved his life. (Photo by EPNAC.com)
Kevin Carroll endured a difficult start to his childhood. Monday at the 2022 CUNA Governmental Affairs Conference, he shared that story and how, with inspiration found through a red rubber ball, he turned his life around.
Abandoned by his parents, who were haunted by drug addiction, Carroll and his two siblings found themselves alone in a trailer park in Virginia hundreds of miles from their home in Philadelphia when Carroll was just 6 years old.
Through the assistance of a stranger, they boarded a bus back to Philadelphia where their grandparents took them in.
When they arrived in Philadelphia, the first thing young Carroll did was find a park to work off his pent-up frustration. He found a red ball—the inflatable rubber kind that virtually every kid who played kickball or dodgeball growing up is familiar with.
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