The Hits and Heroes campaign is a Greenwich American Legion Baseball community service program designed to encourage its youth baseball players to give back to the community through the game that they love. Launched in 2007, the name was derived from counting hits in a season-long hit-a-thon to raise money for the children of fallen military heroes. The campaign has evolved into a permanent campaign designed to support a selected community service initiative each season.

 

In its inaugural year, the Hits and Heroes campaign raised over $3,500 for the American Legacy Scholarship Fund, an American Legion charity that provides college scholarships for children who have lost a parent on active military duty since 9/11.

In 2008 we teamed up with the Boys and Girls Club of Greenwich and the New York Mets in support of their Michael J. Biondi Memorial Baseball Glove Drive. Once again, our Legion players used the game they love to reach out a helping hand to others.  The new and gently used baseball gloves were collected to benefit children who also love baseball but are not as fortunate. These children live in the Dominican Republic where the Mets are opening a training facility. These children are so desperately poor that they use cardboard cartons strapped to their hands in lieu of baseball gloves.

Legion involvement was two-fold. First, prior to the rally, our Legion players conducted a baseball skills clinic for Boys and Girls Club kids and other local youth baseball players on the BGCG turf field.  Second, Legion helped encourage donations of gloves, and of course, donated a bunch ourselves.
This glove drive was a perfect choice for Legion this year. Michael Biondi was not only a strong supporter of children in our community and an avid Mets fan; he was also a member of the Greenwich American Legion Baseball family, with two sons on our Greenwich Cannons teams.


2009's community service project was a Major League Baseball youth event called Pitch, Hit & Run.