Ladies and gentlemen,
We have had a bittersweet couple of weeks here.
First, Hurricane Ida.
As you’ve probably seen, Hurricane Ida made it’s destructive way up the Eastern half of the US a few weeks ago.
Along it’s way, it passed through many towns and cities, leaving behind a trail of damage that, in some places, was difficult to imagine.
But one particular scene caught our eye.
Browsing across the news and social media in the wake of Ida, we found this video in the news of the Somerset Patriots field completely flooded. While this scene is as incredible as it is awful to look at, we instantly wondered: How are the players faring with this catastrophe?
As it turns out, the Patriots were in the middle of a 10 day road trip and didn’t have any of their games immediately postponed due to the hurricane. However, when minor leaguers go on road trips, they all meet up at the stadium beforehand to get on the bus and head out.
Uh oh. That means that their cars are still in the parking lot.
Yup, you bet. As the players enjoyed their roadie, their cars were being completely soaked through from the bottom of their wheel wells to the tops of their roofs. Their cars were completely destroyed.
And, worse than that, most minor leaguers keep nearly a significant amount of belongings in their cars. Because these guys are always on the road, moving to different apartments, and never in the same town for too long, they can’t set up their home with all of their belongings for any longer than a few months. So, most of them choose to just keep their stuff in their car since they are going to be packing it up to go somewhere new at any moment.
We started fundraising instantly.
As Adopt a Minor Leaguer, we knew we had to get involved. We reached out to several of the players to get a conversation with them going about what they lost and how we could help. For many of these players, they had just lost nearly everything that they owned – including their car since they don’t make enough to pay for proper car insurance that covers their vehicle.
In only two short weeks, we managed to put together nearly $16,000 through the amazing community that supports us. We also received significant grants from both Our Baseball Life and More Than Baseball.
Today, we’re working on getting those distributions out to the players.
Because of the complex nature of this situation, we are putting together allotment packages to adequately serve each individual player as fairly as possible.
We have already sent out an immediate emergency disbursement to help the fellas with any immediate needs that they may need help with. As more car insurance claims, damage assessments, and realizations about what was lost continue to develop, we are taking all of these factors into account and running the numbers to make sure that all of the Patriots involved in this program are served in every capacity that we are able to provide.
What Makes it All Worth It
Well, we won’t speak for the players. Here’s what they had to say to thank AaML and our community:
We want to thank all of you out there who have both individually and collectively made this possible. It warms our hearts to know that we can all come together to help out those in need – and that baseball is still the best sport in the world.
