Uganda’s Little League Team Needs Your Help

The story of Uganda’s Little League team is both inspirational, and sad: A few months ago, Uganda’s Rev. John Foundation Little League team made history by qualifying for the Little League World Series, becoming the first African team to ever do so. They were bound for Williamsport, Pennsylvania, or so they thought, until their visas to the United States were denied. The New York Times has more:

It is a sad coda to an inspirational story of a fledgling program for poor children who hoped to test their skills against the best teams in the world. More frustrating for Uganda is that for the second year in a row, a seemingly open path to South Williamsport, Pa., where the tournament is held, has been blocked by adults behind closed doors rather than by children on the playing field.

Many of the boys on the foundation team live in crowded homes with their extended families, subsisting on as little as $100 a month. Some have no parents. And when there are parents in the picture, they are often illiterate, making it difficult to verify the birth certificate information and complicating State Department interviews.

We all love baseball for different reasons. For young Ugandans who have found the game, their reasons are quite different, I would imagine, than ours were – than mine were, surely – when we were growing up:

“Because there is a future in baseball.” — Felix Barugahare

While their dreams of playing in the Little League World Series were dashed, there’s still hope for Ugandan youth baseball: Right to Play, along with Canada’s Little League Team from Langley, British Columbia, local organizer Ruth Hoffman, and filmmaker Jay Shapiro (his excellent work in the clip above), have teamed up with Uganda’s Rev. John Foundation Little League Team, and, with your help, there will be a Pearl of Africa Series in January 2012, in Uganda. Hey, if Uganda can’t come to us, we’ll go to them. Sure as hell makes sense to me.

The fundraising goal is set at $155,000, with $50,970 having been raised so far. But there’s a caveat: The project will only go forward if $75,000 is fundraised by the end of the calendar year. That’s where you and I come in: Let’s donate, an amount small or large (all donations over $20 will get you a tax receipt), and make baseball dreams come true. They’re the best kind of dreams, after all.

Click here to donate.