The baseball team took time out of their weekend trip to Houston to volunteer with Impact Church of Christ, located in downtown Houston. The team played wiffle ball Saturday morning with a group of around 18-20 middle school kids at a park not far from the players’ hotel.
Grant Boone, Alumni Relations officer, organized the event and has worked with Impact before.
“The baseball team jumped right in,” Boone said. “We divided up into teams with all the Texas players on one side and the guys from outside Texas on another. We divided the Impact kids up randomly. We had an absolute blast.”
Senior infielder Chuck Duarte enjoyed playing with kids.
- A young boy from Impact Church of Christ in Houston awaits a pitch during a wiffle ball game with the ACU baseball team. (Optimist photo by Mandy Lambright)
“Those kids definitely looked up to us,” Duarte said. “We thought we could just give something back to them.”
The middle school kids also got to eat lunch with the Wildcats after the wiffle ball game, and a group of them went to the ACU game that night in Minute Maid Park.
“All the guys had a great attitude about it,” Boone said. “What they did could have a big impact on those kids.”
Impact was founded by several ACU alumni. It was established to address the needs of the inner city in Houston. It is located just across the interstate by downtown Houston.
Boone said it is a church that ministers to low income inner city people who are struggling with poverty.
“They feed people, clothe people and help those with short and long term poverty issues,” he said. “They’ve been a real force for good and change in inner city Houston for a quarter of a century.”
