Little Buddy Foundation expands to two donations in 2024
Mar. 13—KILLDEER — Cowboys head basketball coach Greg Pruitt has been running a Southwest North Dakota charitable organization for more than a half-decade and the foundation has been helping regional youths since roughly 2018 to ensure they can return to athletics through the use of prosthetics that the Little Buddy Foundation donates annually. For the first six years, the donation only went to a single athlete per year, but the organization has been able to draw enough interested supporters, funding and financing that they were able to donate a pair of devices to two separate athletes in 2024 for the first time.
"Going into the 2023-24 season — with the funding and just the way that Little Buddy has grown — we're in a position that we can gift two prosthetics this year and so we had two recipients," Pruitt said. "But we've helped anywhere from 13 to 14 children through the prosthetic process, and it might be something like helping with insurance or getting them into the direction where we can purchase the prosthetic for them."
This-year's recipients, Josie Green — from Cascade, Iowa — and Kyler Venable — from Miles City, Mont. — will soon benefit from the devices, which help improve their range-of-motion and are donated as a way to give young people who suffered severe injuries a way to get back on the court, track, field or arena and offer them a way to continue their athletic careers.
Ms. Green lost her right leg to osteosarcoma, and that precluded her from being able to enjoy the sports of volleyball and basketball, which she was playing at the middle-school level and on local teams in Cascade since second-grade. Venable also lost his right leg, but in a side-by-side accident in 2022. He is currently a high-school sophomore and is working to get back on the field and the court as soon as possible. While both athletes are trying to achieve the proper fit for their legs — which can take awhile to get just-right — they are anticipating a new life with their new devices and a return to normalcy.
"We're still working at it, and the goal is we're still trying to do fittings for it — and it's not officially fitting yet — but her goal is to run track starting next week with the use of the new sports-leg —which we're hoping will be done at the end of this week," Josie's Mom, Jenni Green, said. "Still playing volleyball, and basketball just finished, but we'll hopefully be able to run up-and-down the court this summer when open-gyms start."
Mrs. Green said about Josie's anticipation, "Oh my gosh she can't wait to get it and be able to function."
Meanwhile, Venable has experienced nearly 20 surgeries since his accident and he is soldiering on to ensure he can rejoin his teammates and resume his passions as soon as possible.
The Little Buddy Foundation is run by Pruitt, and the inspiration for the organization came from a mentor of Pruitt's, the legendary basketball coach Don Meyer, who had been in an accident in 2008 that required the amputation of his lower-left leg. The resultant device, which Meyer referred to as his "little buddy," provided him a range of mobility and served as impetus for Pruitt's foundation.
"Before coach Meyer passed away, he and I had a great relationship and one of the messages that he left me was, 'Each day that you think about yourself rather than serving others is a miserable, wasted day,' and that's kind of something that I want to take to my grave with me, that: I don't want to be a selfish individual and I want to help as many people as I can," Pruitt said. "When you help children overcome adversity, I don't think there's any better feeling than that alone."
Last year at Dakota Community Bank & Trust Ballpark, an athlete named Taylor Grill, who is from New Underwood, SD — by way of Edgemont, SD — is a student at South Dakota State University. Taylor, who was joined by her mother, Diana Grill, at the game, threw out the first pitch at a Big Sticks game to spread awareness of the Little Buddy Foundation, which has provided her with a prosthetic arm that helps her maintain involvement with rodeo — one of her passions growing up — and function in the arena using her abundant roping and riding skills honed when she was a youngster.
Among the many benefactors to the organization are Chicago Bulls center Andre Drummond — who sent some positive encouragement to Kyler in the form of a video — along with the Monteverde Academy's basketball team, which is one of the top-ranked teams in the country. Pruitt said numerous celebrities have found out about the organization and are becoming active participants in it and donors to it. Along with Drummond, Kate Martin, a star basketball player from the University of Iowa, world-famous baker and "Cake Boss" Buddy Velastro and Cooper Flagg from the Duke basketball team are joining into help in any way they can.
"There are so many people that help inspire these kids, I just think it's awesome," Pruitt said.
For more information about the Little Buddy Foundation or to learn about ways to contribute to the organization, please visit the website at
