“Collecting used baseball equipment started in my family in 2009 when my older brother was a sophomore in high school. My parents asked him to think of a way he could help others in some way. He incorporated his love for baseball in this challenge. Realizing the amount of baseball equipment no longer used in our garage and probably in the garages of many others, he organized successful donation drives throughout our town as well as neighboring towns. I was in third grade, but I knew that when I got older, I wanted to do the same thing.
Now I am a sophomore at Randolph High School, and I love everything about the game of baseball. The thought that kids in poorer areas cannot play baseball the right way or safely because they do not have the appropriate equipment makes me sad. Especially knowing how much equipment we all have sitting in our basements that can help. The things my brother saw – one boy wearing snow boots in 90-degree weather, one batting helmet being passed from player to player on both teams, mitts being thrown back and forth between teams – have stayed with me all these years. As well as how ecstatic he said these kids were to be handed their own mitt! Continuing these donation drives was exactly what I wanted to do.
This past year I collected over 500 pieces of used baseball/softball equipment including mitts, bats, helmets, catching gear, bags, cleats etc. that I donated to Pitch In for Baseball & Softball. In January, I was lucky enough to join the organization in the Dominican Republic to personally help distribute the equipment to kids in underprivileged areas. The trip was an incredibly significant experience. It is one thing to collect equipment, send it off, and assume it got somewhere, but another thing to see first hand how much happiness and excitement it brought and how helpful our used equipment was going to be.
I am even more motivated to continue this effort. With the help of Pitch In for Baseball & Softball, we can continue to have the same results in the future.”