Members Support Their Second Home
Eighth annual Home Runs for Horton’s Kids raises more than $500,000
Two days before the Congressional Baseball Game took over Nationals Park , Horton’s Kids used it to raise more than $517,000 to support children in Anacostia.
“I don’t think people ever get a chance in their life to be on a Major League baseball field — in the dugout, in the batting cage, pitching cage,” New York Democratic Rep. Joseph Crowley said last week at the eighth annual Home Runs for Horton’s Kids. “So for kids especially, it gives them a real thrill, to some an inspiration to want to go the next step.”
At $250 a ticket, attendees, which included several Hill staffers and their children, could enjoy the indoor batting cages, a puppy petting zoo, races with President Teddy Roosevelt and meeting some of the children of Horton’s Kids.
[
Congressional Baseball Players Were Running on Empty
]
The stadium’s PNC Diamond Club and Delta Sky360 Club were full of attendees to escape the stormy night and enjoy baseball-classic food, including banana’s foster in miniature Nationals caps.
“It really is about kids and about the children here and that every child deserves an opportunity,” said Crowley, who is a congressional co-chairman of the charity.
“I think if they can see what the potential is — whether your homeless, whether you’re poor, whether you have a house, whatever it may be — we all have the same basic needs,” he said.
[
The View from the Dugouts at the Congressional Baseball Game
]
Horton’s Kids supports children in grades K-12 living in Wellington Park in Southeast D.C. For 27 years, the group has had a resource center in the community where students come to learn with the goal of graduating high school.
“It’s got a nice story history to it… and it’s turned into something really spectacular,” Crowley said.
Sens. Christopher S. Murphy, D-Conn., and Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., who both played in Thursday’s game , also attended the event and brought their children along.
Also in attendance were Reps. Jackie Walorski, R-Ind., Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., and Rep. Scott Tipton, R-Colo.
