Baseball Players Participate in Olive Branch

LOS ANGELES, Calif. (April 14, 2009) – At the beginning of the semester before the Tigers began suiting up for games on Saturday morning’s, many of the Occidental baseball players took time out of their busy schedules to give back to the local community.

Back in January a number of student-athletes participated in the Olive Branches mentoring program by dedicating a few hours of their Saturday afternoon to playing several baseball-related games with the kids.

Olive Branches is a mentoring program through the CCBL where Oxy students volunteer to act as role models for neighboring Yorkdale elementary fifth graders. In doing so the players were responsible for overseeing the group in a variety of leadership, health and creative arts-related activities.

The afternoon began with a Q&A session about baseball and their favorite teams and players before things got interactive. An exciting game of “pickle” was a highlight for everyone, before the session concluded with a second Q&A session about Occidental College baseball.

Not only did the kids love the opportunity to be around collegiate athletes, as they were very grateful, but the college students enjoyed it as well.

“Even when it might not seem like much from our point of view, I know it means a lot to the kids,” said senior captain Matthew Jones, “Today was a lot of fun.”