My favorite most ball player, Anthony Rizzo, raised $1 million last weekend with his Swing for the Fences auction. The money will go to help families battling pediatric cancer.* The Anthony Rizzo Family Foundation provides grants to help parents pay for meals and parking at the hospitals while their child is in treatment, rent or mortgage so they don't have to worry about the roof over their heads as they fight cancer, and daycare for any siblings so parents can accompany the patient to chemo treatments. Over the years he's provided therapy dogs to Joe DiMaggio Children Hospital in Hollywood, Florida, taken patients from the Children's Hospital at Montefiore in New York shopping at the flagship FAO Schwartz store and built the family waiting area at Chicago's Lurie Children's Hospital. All year around he sends personal letters to young patients, encouraging them to "dream big."
This week he was asked who he'd put on his baseball Mount Rushmore.
*This is not a charity that focuses on research or treatment. If that's where your heart leads you, check out St. Jude's.
I think I have told you before that seven years ago, my then six-year-old grandson was diagnosed with brain cancer. It was so scary for everyone, and he is alive today thanks to Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and St.Judes. Both institutions are absolute God-sends. Organizations like Anthony Rizzo's foundation were a wonderful help to my daughter's family. Fighting cancer is super expensive, even when the family has decent insurance (my daughter's family had military healthcare). Rizzo is a good guy. Ken Griffey Jr. was my oldest son's favorite player. He is a total baseball devotee - a complete Angels fan. Watching a baseball game = best way to spend a summer evening that I know of.
ReplyDeleteYou realize I'm a Rizzo fan now, too, right?
ReplyDelete