Boston.RedSox.MLB.com

COMMUNITY SERVICE

In 2004, in the program's inaugural year, the American and Dominican teens together built a baseball field and a daycare center in El Mamón. In the program's sophomore year, further improvements, physical and developmental, were made to the newly built baseball field and daycare center.

In 2005, in the program's third year, the group returned to help the children of El Mamón use the field and daycare center on a more frequent basis.

In 2006, in the fourth year of the program, the participants ventured to an oceanside town called Haina. The program chose this town because it is the hometown of both Red Sox great David Ortiz and Jesus Alou. While in Haina, the participants rebuilt a baseball field.

In 2008, the fifth year of the program, the teens worked together in the Dominican town of San Pedro de Macoris. This town is known throughout the Dominican as the hotbed of baseball, due to the large number of successful ballplayers who grew up there. In this town, the Lindos Sueños participants worked each morning building a baseball field (from scatch) for the orphans and abandoned children who live there. Through the construction of this ballfield, the participants were able to give the children a place to learn and experience the game that has given them so much over the course of their young lives. Many Lindos Sueños participants expressed the important role that baseball has played in their life. They praised the game for getting them "off the streets," and for teaching them about "responsibility, the rewards of hard work, and the importance of teamwork."

Over the course of many years to follow, the orphans and abandoned children at Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos, will practice and play on this field and hopefully learn many of the same life lessons that the game has to teach.