In Early Sep­tem­ber we received a call sug­gest­ing that Nike had some sur­plus gear that was returned from the Col­lege World Series in Omaha.  We began orga­niz­ing it into team sets for some of our High School, JBO and Babe Ruth teams in chal­lenged areas.  Low and behold, we were look­ing at $21,000 in Gear!  Christ­mas may just come a bit early for these under­served teams!  Addi­tion­ally we were noti­fied two weeks ago that the Nike Employee Grant Fund of The Ore­gon Com­mu­nity Foun­da­tion had approved a grant for $15,000 to pro­mote acces­si­bil­ity and equity for all boys and girls expe­ri­enc­ing bar­ri­ers to play­ing base­ball or soft­ball.  Thank you to Nike for their gen­er­ous and ongo­ing sup­port of Friends of Baseball.