Mission Statement
Pitch In For Baseball (PIFB) is a registered 501(c)(3) not for profit organization that provides new and gently used baseball and softball equipment to boys and girls in the United States and around the world who want to play ball but lack the equipment to do so. PIFB helps reduce barriers to play by providing equipment grants directly to leagues, schools, and organizations around the world to start, continue, and/or expand their youth baseball programs.
Over the past 9 years, Pitch In For Baseball has donated more than $3.5 million worth of equipment to 250,000 under-resourced kids in nearly every state in the U.S. and 80 different countries. We are partners of Little League International, Major League Baseball (MLB)’s Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities (RBI) program, Babe Ruth League, and USA Baseball, ensuring that we are reaching the most under-resourced communities. In 2013, through equipment grants and disaster relief efforts, PIFB has helped make baseball possible for 30,000 kids in 29 states and 25 countries through 159 projects.
Description
At its simplest, baseball is a game that is played by boys and girls in backyards, country fields, playgrounds, sandlots, and streets. It is about getting outside, spending time with friends, being on a team, experiencing the highs of winning and the agony of defeat, having a chance for pure play, and just be a kid. While baseball is the stuff that childhood memories are made of, it is also a powerful vehicle for youth development, teaching important life lessons like teamwork, respect, making a commitment, and how to win and lose. It also helps build self-confidence, provides positive alternative for the key after-school hours, gives kids positive role models/adult supervision, and supports a culture of health. Baseball also brings communities together by unifying people from different backgrounds, religions, and ethnic groups and offers parents a way to engage with their kids in a different way.
However, baseball is not accessible to everyone for a variety of reasons with the two dominant factors being financial and lack of programming. For the past 9 years, PIFB has been helping to reduce these barriers to play by providing equipment grants directly to leagues, schools, and organizations around the world to start, continue, and/or expand their youth baseball programs. PIFB is also a leader related to disaster relief efforts and youth service projects. Baseball can have a healing power, restoring a sense of normalcy amidst the chaos.
Pitch In For Baseball is currently collecting the following new and "gently used" youth baseball and softball equipment: gloves, catcher's equipment, aluminum baseball bats, batting helmets, baseballs. Pitch In For Baseball is also accepting youth rubber baseball cleats, bases, pitching machines, teaching aids such as batting tees, and full team sets of uniforms and hats. Financial Support: We need donations of money in addition to equipment. These funds help us store and ship baseball equipment to children across the globe as well as purchase new equipment as needed.
Pitch In For Baseball embodies sports philanthropy by taking the aforementioned factors - joy, youth development, service, and collaboration - and joining them together towards one shared goal: making baseball accessible to children everywhere.
