Earlier this year we established a charity program for underprivileged children in the Dominican republic. Every time we conduct a Fantasy Baseball Camp in a country abroad, we work with the MLB players from that country to assist in providing much needed baseball equipment for the kids.
A North Bay man is going to bat for kids in the Caribbean who love baseball by collecting a garage-full of surplus equipment and delivering them to poor island residents.
“It’s going to be like Christmas in June,” said Isaias Franco recently while stuffing duffel bags with hundreds of balls, bats, gloves, shoes and uniforms. “My bag fees are going to be more than my plane ticket.”
This weekend, the entire trove will fly with him to the Dominican Republic, an impoverished nation that is consumed by baseball, but where barefoot kids swing broom handles as bats.
“It’s inspiring and amazing to see that love of the game, and kids out here definitely don’t realize how good they have it.”
All of the baseball merchandise Franco provides comes from donations. He started calling youth and adult teams, and sporting goods stores in April. Some of the equipment shows wear and tear but some of the merchandise is brand new.
Around 200 children from the Dominican Republic were gifted baseball gloves, and the remainder of the donated baseball equipment was donated to the local village baseball academy for all to use.
This charity program is an integral part of what we do here at GBA.
Our local TV station KTVU Petaluma came out to film us working on the charity program.
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