Ypsi National Little League receives massive donation influx after popular TikToker’s post

On the Ground Ypsilanti is an “embedded journalism” program covering the city and township of Ypsilanti. It is supported by Ann Arbor SPARK, the Center for Health and Research Transformation, Destination Ann Arbor, Eastern Michigan University, Engage @ EMU, Washtenaw Community College, Washtenaw County Parks and Recreation Commission, and Washtenaw ISD.

Thanks to a popular content creator’s post, people in Ypsilanti and across the U.S. recently stepped in to help the Ypsilanti National Little League (YNLL) after its ballfields were vandalized with graffiti.

The league, which serves about 200 kids each year, was dealt a hard blow after the vandalism in the off season at the end of 2025. YNLL President Katie DeLano says police weren’t helpful in identifying suspects, but Ypsilanti Township, which owns security cameras in the area, did identify a group of individuals who’d defaced the buildings, dugouts, and more.

A local painter volunteered to come paint over the graffiti “at the last minute,” DeLano says, so only part of the buildings were covered by the time young athletes began practicing in the spring.

DeLano follows a social media content creator named Dillon White, known online as Dad Chats, who has 3 million followers on TikTok alone. DeLano sent White a letter asking if he might consider giving through the donation portal the YNLL uses for fundraising. Instead of just donating himself, he shared the Ypsilanti-based story with his followers all over the U.S.

“I told him my story of being a single parent running the league and hoped he would sponsor us, but he posted a link to our [fundraising] platform,” DeLano says. 

That inspired a great deal of both monetary and material donations. For instance, community members donated enough food to stock YNLL’s concession stands. The proceeds from concessions fund salaries for YNLL’s teenaged referees, many of whom are working their very first paid job, DeLano says. The Detroit Tigers also offered to help the YNLL.

“The [Tigers are] going to partner with us and work with me long-term,” DeLano says. “They’re going to provide their legal team and a lot of other resources that the Tigers have that I, in a million years, would not have access to.”

DeLano says it’s amazing that so many private citizens “stepped up when nobody else did.”

She believes the funding raised during the latest wave of donations will last for the next eight or nine years.

More information about the Ypsilanti National Little League can be found here.