Dana Point Youth Baseball’s motto, “It’s More Than Baseball,” has never meant more than now. Just this past week, team members, parents, administrators, and coaches united off the field to help stop the spread of COVID-19 in their community – especially among the most vulnerable.

The City of Dana Point and its surrounding communities have a very disproportionate amount of elderly with the mean age around 70 years. In mid-March when Orange County announced its shelter-in-place directive, the league stopped all operations but that only freed them up to find a way to help others in need.

As basic cleaning items and other living necessities began to disappear from store shelves, the team decided to find a way to get hand sanitizer to the people who needed it most – local seniors. They purchased hand sanitizer by the gallon – even a 50-gallon drum – and scrambled to find and purchase wholesale small plastic bottles from multiple sources. 

Eighty gallons of hand sanitizer and 10,00 2 ounce plastic bottles later, the team will begin to distribute the fruits of their labor on Friday, April 10.  They will hand-deliver to the community center where it will then be distributed to homebound seniors. The league will work with the City of Dana Point for bulk distribution. It may also be possible to erect a drive-through pop-up at the local community center.

Seems as if life is throwing us all a curveball, but Dana Point Youth Baseball is stepping up to the plate in a big way. In fact, they just ordered another 50 gallons of hand sanitizer to bottle and distribute in late April.