- November 27, 2024
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Baseball is the national sport of Nicaragua. Children often use sticks and play barefoot or in flip-flops.
Thanks to Matanzas High School baseball players and parents, 155 students at the LifeLink School, in Ciudad Sandino, Nicaragua, now have baseball equipment.
The Matanzas baseball team came together to collect baseball equipment, uniforms and vitamins for the students at LifeLink School.
The group collected and donated 15 gloves, 10 bats, 20 batting helmets, two sets of catcher’s gear and enough baseball uniforms to outfit several adult teams, according to Brooke Walls, who coordinated the drive.
LifeLink International President Mike Turner, along with his grandson, junior varsity Pirate Tyler Walls, presented the equipment to the children during a baseball and soccer clinic.
“The kids were excited to have such nice equipment and couldn’t wait to try it all out,” said Deborah Turner, executive director of LifeLink International.
Based in Palm Coast, LifeLink International is a nonprofit organization that works in third-world countries. LifeLink’s major education project is the school, which services children ages 3-7, in one of the poorest areas of Nicaragua.
The program offers a sponsorship program that provides each child with tuition, school supplies, a daily hot meal with vitamins and a Christian education, which includes English as a second language, gymnastics, dance and chapel service.
“LifeLink prepares and serves over 775 healthy and hot meals each week and for many of our students this may very well be the only meal they will eat in a day,” Deborah Turner said.
She described the homes of the students at LifeLink as small tin-and-plastic houses with dirt floors, outside showers and toilets and open-fire cooking.
“In the midst of great poverty, the two-acre LifeLink International Base and School serves as an oasis in a dark place and provides a safe and beautiful place for children to dream, learn and grow,” Turner said.
LifeLink has a team of four North American missionaries living in Nicaragua working in the school and a staff of 12 from Nicaragua. The Turners divide their time between Nicaragua and Palm Coast.
The organization has plans of adding one grade level each school year with an additional 40 students. In 2012, the school will add second grade.
For more information, visit www.life linkint.org.
Contact Shanna Fortier at [email protected].
