Behind the Scenes at the Baseball Tomorrow Fund – Equipment Day

2011 marks the 7^th anniversary of Equipment Day, a joint effort between the Baseball Tomorrow Fund (BTF) and Major League Baseball clubs to host equipment drives at stadiums across the country. On Equipment Day, fans are invited to bring in new and used equipment in addition to cash donations that will benefit local, youth baseball and softball organizations. Having the proper equipment is vital to providing access to the game for all children, and we’ve heard this directly from one of our previous recipients of equipment:

 ”This grant will allow us to provide new baseball gloves to any low income participant for free. It will ensure that no child is unable to participate due to not owning the necessary equipment.”
-Matt B., Parkways Foundation, Chicago, IL

As an intern with the BTF, one of my main duties is preparing MLB clubs for Equipment Day. This is a quite rewarding process because I can directly see the benefits of all the work we do behind the scenes once the equipment is distributed. The first step is reaching out to each team to coordinate resources and marketing efforts around each Equipment Day. It can be difficult to simultaneously coordinate with community relations managers at all 30 clubs, but it’s a necessary task to ensure that we collect as much equipment as possible. Next, we provide teams with Equipment Day promotional materials so that they can draw as much awareness to the event as possible. We send a variety of materials to each club including personalized signage and Equipment Day collateral to name a couple.

Now that all of these pieces are in place, we are looking forward to each club’s equipment drive. The Oakland A’s will be hosting the first Equipment Day on April 17, at the Coliseum. Check out our website for a full list of Equipment Day dates, and please stop by your local team’s stadium with equipment or cash to help one of your local, youth teams.