Baseball Project for Natural Disaster Survivors

Thank you very much for all your generous donations so far this year.  You are helping us further prepare the 2019 Baseball Project for Natural Disaster Survivors for junior high school baseball players from Kumamoto and Tohoku.

 This year`s project will be held in Los Angeles at the end of July, so we must complete all of the preparations and fundraising over the next seven weeks.  As we say in Japanese:  Ganbarimasu!  We will do our very best!

With your generous support, we will bring together and provide approximately 20 junior high school baseball players and their coaches from Kumamoto and Ishinomaki with baseball, leadership, teamwork, communications and disaster preparedness training and have them participate in a volunteer activity.  One of the former participants from Kumamoto who is now in high school will participate as well as an intern to learn further leadership, management and communications skills.

This Project was inspired by Shohei Ohtani joining the Los Angeles Angels as a pitcher and designated hitter.  Ohtani is a hero and great inspiration in the eyes of many young Japanese baseball players.  We thought how can we inspire these young baseball players to aim high and to be future leaders in their communities if we don’t aim high ourselves in organizing this project? We are very excited to be organizing this project so that these young baseball players can gain further confidence and life skills by training overseas and by playing baseball with their peers who are overcoming many challenges growing up in underprivileged communities in the greater Los Angeles area.  It will also be a very meaningful learning experience for their peers in the greater Los Angeles area who will be participating in this Project.  Baseball is a wonderful way of bringing people together and promoting greater understanding and compassion between different cultures and communities.

Kumamoto experienced several earthquakes in April 2016 including a 6.2 magnitude (on the Japanese scale) earthquake on April 15th and a 7.0 magnitude earthquake (on the Japanese scale) in April 16th.  More than 50,000 people were evacuated from their homes and more than two years later many are still living in temporary housing.  Many of the buildings, including schools and the iconic Kumamoto Castle, were severely damaged.  Kumamoto is still very much a city undergoing long-term reconstruction.

 Ishinomaki in Tohoku was one of the areas most severely impacted by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.  A 33 foot wall of water traveled more than three miles inland leveling 80% of the homes and destroying many other buildings.  Eight years later Ishinomaki is still rebuilding and many are still living in temporary housing.

 In both cities, school buildings and sports training facilities were impacted.  For example, school baseball fields have been used as locations for temporary housing. 

 Since our last report, we have been very busy preparing for this Project.  There is still lots to be done by the end of July!  We are meeting regularly with Major League Baseball representatives to organize the baseball training workshops.  In addition, we have are meeting with sponsors and potential sponsors to arrange for in-kind and other donations.  And we are in regular communication with the local junior high schools and junior high school baseball coaches.  We also have been conducting orientations in Kumamoto and Ishinomaki and meeting with the young players and their coaches and parents so that everyone will be well prepared to enjoy and maximize this wonderful opportunity and learning experience.

 We also have been expanding the impact of this Baseball Project in Kumamoto as we are working with a different junior high school this year.  The baseball team we have worked with in the past cannot participate this year as they have to play in a tournament in late July.  We are very excited as this gives us an opportunity to nurture even more future leaders in Kumamoto.

 Everyone is extremely excited about this Project and we are certain that these young baseball players from Japan and the United States will work very hard to learn as much as they can from this Project.  The future looks bright!

We greatly appreciate your generous support and your making it possible for us to provide baseball, leadership, teamwork, communications and disaster preparedness training to all these promising young kids who are -- and will continue to be -- leaders and role models in their local communities.