Town residents’ generosity rallies Nicaraguan players
Young ballplayers in Valle de Casa, Nicaragua, sport gear from Arlington.
Last spring, the youngsters from rural Nicaragua shown at left had no uniforms or equipment. They were using dried-out fruit as baseballs and rake handles as bats.
Then Bill McQueeney and the Arlington Youth Baseball and Softball Association (AYBSA) got involved.
McQueeney works for Rural Water Ventures, a nonprofit based in Sudbury that provides fresh-water wells to remote villages in Nicaragua. He asked the AYBSA to help the children of the small, rural community of Valle de Casa in central Nicaragua who were in desperate need of baseball equipment.
Arlington met the challenge, and, at holiday time, these are youngsters in baseball-crazy Nicaragua are saying “muchas gracias.”
Recently, following the end of Nicaragua’s rainy season, enough equipment and clothing to outfit a number of teams were delivered to Valle de Casa.
The Agua Para La Vida (APLV) health promoter in the region assisted with this process and indicated that the kids were “absolutely ecstatic.”
‘Beautiful act’
Aynn Setright, president of APLV Nicaragua, wrote in an email, “This was a beautiful act of solidarity and kindness, and makes so many people happy. What the children have received from the good folks of Arlington is beyond their wildest dreams. They will remember it and the day they received it for the rest of their lives.”
The AYBSA has received numerous heartwarming letters of thanks from the children in these photos. In the next few weeks, APLV Nicaragua plans to deliver equipment and clothing to several more villages in the area.
How did the effort hit such a grand slam?
Hearing McQueeney’s appeal to help an area that is among the most abandoned, deprived and destitute in the Americas, Arlington pals got to work. Gregg Malatesta, an AYBSA manager and friend of McQueeney, and Capt. Richard Flynn of the Arlington Police Department formed a partnership between Rural Water Ventures and the association.
Paul Carroll, association president, was on board, and the group ran with it.
On May 3, the AYBSA offered a six-hour collection point outside the Ed Burns Arena for a used baseball equipment and apparel in conjunction with its Dana-Farber Cancer Institute blood drive.
The pitch was no curve; it was straight down the middle from the AYBSA:
In Nicaragua, as in Arlington, kids are crazy about baseball. When the weather cooperates, kids like to hit the fields, play catch, hit dingers.
Unlike in Arlington, many kids in Valle de Casa don’t have bases, bats, balls, caps or shirts. They spend most of their time in school or working to help their families to survive. When they do play, they use hard-shell fruits for balls and rakes and shovels as bats.
AYBSA asked the public to help by collecting used bats, balls, gloves, caps, team jerseys, bases. The AYBSA said it would package up these items and deliver them to Rural Water Ventures.
And that’s what happened.
Overwhelming generosity
“The generosity of the Arlington baseball community was overwhelming, with enough used equipment and uniforms collected to outfit several teams,” noted Flynn.
Flynn said he has been involved with the AYBSA as a baseball manager and member of the board for the past 10 years. “I have found this to be a fantastic way to connect with the kids in town, teach the game of baseball and to give back to the community where I live and work,” he wrote in an email.
The Arlington Youth Baseball and Softball Association thanks the town’s baseball community and all those who donated their used baseball equipment in May.
Those involved also thank their new friends at Rural Water Ventures for their assistance in collecting, shipping and transporting the equipment to Nicaragua.
These efforts have helped to enrich the lives of the children in Valle de Casa and exemplify the true meaning of the holiday season, Flynn wrote.
This story was published Tuesday, Dec. 22, 2015.
