Umpires Erich Bacchus and Paul Emmel were joined by St. Louis Cardinals mascot, Fredbird, and volunteers from the Arby’s Foundation, to deliver Build-A-Bear® furry friends to children undergoing treatment at St. Louis Children’s Hospital.
UMPS CARE Charities is hosting not one, but two, deliveries of Build-A-Bear® furry friends today for children undergoing medical treatment at Boston Children’s Hospital and at St. Louis Children’s Hospital.
In all, 200 stuffed toys, outfits, baseball-themed activity books and more will be delivered to kids, bringing plenty of smiles to their faces and to their families.
Dating back to 2006 when this program began, UMPS CARE Charities has now delivered 19,240 Build-A-Bear stuffed toys to young patients at pediatric hospitals across the country and in Canada. We are grateful for the support from Bristol Myers Squibb for the delivery in Boston and to the Arby’s Foundation for its support in St. Louis.
In Boston, two Major League Baseball Umpires, Jim Reynolds and Todd Tichenor, will visit kids via Zoom and they will play a game of Beanboozled jelly beans with the young patients.
If you are not familiar with Beanboozled, you might feel lucky after reading this. In this game, kids select a color jelly bean for the umpires to try, and the umpires would not know if the jelly bean flavor would be a yummy treat (say, birthday cake) or if it would be less appetizing (say, dirty dishwater).
Suffice it to say, the umps got Beanboozled a few times. The visit gave the kids a chance to have fun, share laughs and be kids.
Meanwhile, in St. Louis, umpires Paul Emmel and Erich Bacchus, along with St. Louis Cardinals mascot, Fredbird, were able to deliver Build-A-Bear® furry friends in person and at the bedside of kids undergoing treatment. The umpires were joined by volunteers representing local Arby’s franchises. Through a generous grant from the Arby’s Foundation, local volunteers helped stuff goody bags for the kids and made the visit possible.
We want to thank former Minor League Baseball Umpire Jimmy Volpi and his crew at Arby’s for their support for making this visit come to fruition, and to the St. Louis Cardinals for adding extra goodies for the kids for this visit and for having Fredbird join in the fun!
