By Tiffany Williams –
In their off-season, Worcester Red Sox players and coaches are staying active off the ball field and in the community. On Monday and Tuesday WooSox Infielder Ryan Fitzgerald and Hitting Coach Rich Gedman are celebrating the holidays with the 2022 “WooSox Foundation Holiday Caravan” to spread some cheer across the Heart of the Commonwealth supporting those in need.
On Monday, Fitzgerald and Gedman visited Why Me & Sherry’s House to bring gifts and essentials to toddlers and teens who are battling cancer. The group also visited TLK Sports, a Worcester-based community organization that emphasizes the importance of teamwork and relationship building through a number of sports, including baseball. They ended Monday night at the McAuley Nazareth Home in Leicester, Massachusetts showing their support for foster children by bringing winter hats and an assortment of surprise gifts.
Tuesday, Fitzgerald and Gedman were up early assisting in providing breakfast to some of the Worcester’s neediest population at St. John’s Food for the Poor. Next, they visited Abby’s House in Worcester, where toys and treats were given to women and children. Abby’s House is a local organization that provides shelter and affordable housing, as well as advocacy and support services, to homeless, battered, and low-income women, with or without children. Their vision, “Abby’s House empowers the women we serve to lead self-directed lives filled with dignity and hope.”
The next stop was UMass Memorial Children’s Medical Center, “Where care packages filled with toys, books, and everyday essentials will go to kids who are in treatment,” said the WooSox. “For the second straight year, the club has partnered with Kits for Kids, a Marlborough based organization that has provided care packages around the holidays to children in need for over 13 years.”
Before wrapping up the day, Fitzgerald and Gedman with the Worcester Education Collaborative, stopped by the Guild of St. Agnes, where they donated tablets and keyboards to children. They then stopped by the YMCA Central Community Branch and wrapped up the day back at Polar Park, where fans had the opportunity to meet Ryan Fitzgerald in the WooSox Team Store.
On Wednesday the WooSox concluded their 2022 Holiday Caravan with visits to Abby Kelley Foster Elementary School, and Gates Lane Elementary School, where the club established a mentoring program this past March in partnership with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Massachusetts.
NewsTalk New England met up with Fitzgerald and Gedman at Abby’s House to talk with them about the Holiday Caravan.
NewsTalk New England 