It started when the Ehman family started cleaning out the garage in their north side home last fall. Clark Ehman, then 13, noticed they had plenty of baseball equipment they weren’t using anymore which could use a new home.
There was also gear at his recreational and travel teams that could be used elsewhere. So he started collecting the gear with the idea of donating it to someone who could use it.
As the year went on, the idea, and the collection, kept growing.
“I didn’t know if people would be this generous, so I started with them,” Clark, now a freshman at Obama Academy, said Friday. “It really picked up. A lot of people did have a lot of equipment. I just started collecting more and more, and it got to this point.”
In total, the Ehman family, with the help of the Pirates, would end up collecting 20 large plastic containers filled with new and gently used equipment that will be donated to baseball facilities in the Dominican Republic and Venezuela. Six of those containers were filled Friday in a drop off event at PNC Park.
The Pirates are collecting new and gently used baseball gear to distribute to facilities at the Dominican Republic and Venezuela. They have 20 bins going filled just like this one, and they’ll probably need more.
— Alex Stumpf (@AlexJStumpf) January 14, 2022
Drop off center is by the Maz statue until 6. pic.twitter.com/mBqNMFYFEs
When Clark contacted the Pirates’ manager of community outreach Joel Gray, Gray thought it would be a simple phone conversation. Instead, Clark told him he had prepared a presentation on what he was trying to do.
Within a few minutes, they were doing a screen share, watching a PowerPoint.
“That’s where I was sold,” Gray said. “I was like, ‘Look, I don’t know how we’re gonna make this happen, but I’m gonna do all I can to figure out how to help you out.’”
As flyers went up around Obama Academy and the surrounding area, more and more people began to donate, even before the Pirates became involved.
“He’d get calls from random people,” Joe Ehman, Clark’s father, said. “Asking, ‘Where do you want me to drop it off at? Do you want to come to my house, I’ll give you my address.’”
It’s not uncommon for quality gloves and bats to cost several hundred dollars, so each bin is filled with thousands of dollars’ worth of equipment for young players looking for an opportunity to play.
It’s an impressive total, one that they’ll try to top next year.
“Baseball is my favorite thing,” Clark said. “Turning it into a way to help others and the community, it’s great.”
