CINCINNATI -- It was a cold and gray Thursday morning -- one week before Thanksgiving -- and there were cars lined up along the stretch of road leading to the P&G MLB Cincinnati Reds Youth Academy in Cincinnati's Roselawn neighborhood.
Vehicles had been lined up before dawn for an event that began at 9 a.m. It was the sixth annual holiday meal distribution staged by the Freestore Foodbank in partnership with the Reds Community Fund.
“It’s the single largest event of this type that the Freestore hosts in a given year, because our facility lays out so well. It’s so conducive for this sort of thing because the academy and its location is so central," said Charley Frank, the executive director of the Reds Community Fund.
The event gave away about 1,750 meals with around 100,000 pounds of food distributed.
“It’s a reminder of how much need there is out there," Frank added.
About 50 Reds front-office employees -- including general manager Brad Meador and radio broadcaster Tommy Thrall -- were spread out in the academy parking lot and among the volunteers.
People could remain in their cars while the volunteers loaded up their trunks or back seats with a holiday box that included frozen turkey or chicken, gravy, stuffing, canned vegetables, macaroni and cheese, potatoes, carrots, apples and other fresh produce and holiday fixings.
"You're all set. Happy Thanksgiving," Meador said to a woman after he loaded her car with food.
"Thank you, happy Thanksgiving," she replied before driving off.
Thrall and his fiancée, Erin, were helping direct traffic once cars got inside the complex.
"It’s just nice to give back to the community a little bit and help out any way I can," Thrall said. "I’ve got plenty of time on my hands. It’s great to give back. You just see the joy this brings to people that have a need this time of year. It’s the holidays. You hate for anybody to go hungry this time of year.”
The academy, which normally hosts a variety of baseball and softball programs and instruction, usually opens its doors for public events on a quarterly basis.
"In early August, we hosted a National Night Out event here with District 4 of Cincinnati Police," Frank said. "When we opened here over 11 years ago, our goal was to make sure that this was truly a community resource. And today is probably the best example of that. This is a reminder of why we put stakes into the community this way. Because it really is much more than baseball and softball.”
For 25 years, the Reds Community Fund has strived to not only provide access to baseball and softball for underserved kids ages 4-18, but also in education efforts and community building.
The youth academy is the hub for the Reds’ RBI baseball and softball efforts. Of the 38 seniors who played for Nike RBI (Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities), 19 are going on to play ball at colleges.
“It was by far the biggest number [we've had]," Frank said.
One of those seniors, Manny Sanchez, signed to play for the University of Louisville. He was the Reds Nike RBI's first student-athlete who committed to a Division I school in a Power 4 conference.
Away from the academy, the Reds completed their 16th annual Community Makeover project in Cincinnati's Walnut Hills neighborhood in July. Reliever Brent Suter was among more than 400 volunteers who descended on five sections to redesign playgrounds, design murals and urban gardens and contribute to outdoor beautification and painting and ballfield upgrades.
Besides the involvement of longtime corporate partners like P&G, the Cincinnati Zoo, Kroger and GE Aerospace, the Reds Community Fund also worked with new partners like Sleep in Heavenly Peace, Keep Cincinnati Beautiful, Shoes for the Shoeless and Urban Farming Initiative for a successful makeover.
“The makeover continues to add layers, and in doing so, really ensures to add that transformative change in a neighborhood," Frank said.
Overall, it was another robust year for the Reds Community Fund.
Said Frank: “We’ve had some fantastic field projects. We did one of our better community makeover projects in the Walnut Hills neighborhood. We grew our Reds Little Sluggers League program to include 8U. We’re really trying to grow our introductory baseball programming. Our RBI teams -- each one of them made it to the championship Sunday for the East Regionals in Pittsburgh. By all of our metrics, it was another outstanding year of engagement and growing the game.”