Editor's Note: I'm happy to promote this to the front page, as I love that members of the AN community are doing good things and inspiring others to do the same. We look forward to hearing all about the trip when you're back! Meanwhile, everyone enjoy a great read and feel free to lend your support to this worthy cause. -Nico.

In January, I will spend a few weeks in Tanzania. I'll do some climbing (try to make it to Uhuru Peak) and some traveling around (Land Rover and a tent should take me through Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater, Lake Manyara and such). I will also spend several days doing some volunteer work in Amani Children's Home in Moshi, Tanzania. This has obviously nothing to do with the A's, but it might have something to do with baseball, if you read on.

Tanzania is one of the poorest countries there is. On average people there make just around $500 a year (compared to GDP per capita of $40k+ that USA or Germany have). Lack of resources coupled with high AIDS rate makes it hard for kids to even survive, let alone get a chance for education. Some numbers? There are more than 2.5 million AIDS orphans in the country. 115 out of every 1000 newborns never make it to their fifth birthday and out of those who do, less than 50% will ever finish elementary school.

Amani Children's Home takes care of street children, providing them with shelter, healthy food and education. It also tries to reunite the kids with whatever family they might have left and tries to cover the school cost in those cases, too. It is a small, grassroots organization with little overhead that last year helped 218 kids to attend school. Their local classrooms have been recognized by Tanzanian government and enable the graduates to apply for secondary education.

As most such organizations, Amani (meaning peace in Swahili) depends on external funding and volunteer work. The ambassadors, as such short term voluntary workers are called, work twofold trying to help. On one side they raise money and awareness prior to their arrival. This part has actually been much fun for me, as my friends jumped in and we have thought of various activities (I am still in awe that people would actually pay for a cake I baked).

I promise, the next paragraph is were we get to baseball and AN.

The other part of ambassador's engagement is working directly with the kids, helping build stuff for them, teaching them English (<insert your joke about a Croatian married to a Spaniard and living in Germany teaching anyone English here>), art and sports. The children love to hear about the different worlds out there, and I will be taking a big set of my sailing pictures with me, especially the ones from the Antarctica trip. I'll cook them some Mediterranean meals. And I will do what they like the best - teach them a new game. If you have made it so far, by now you should know what game I'm talking about.

This is where I turn to AN for help. In Europe it is almost impossible to get hands on any used baseball equipment. It is so rare and most teams struggle themselves to gather enough of it, so I thought of asking here. Do you have any old, used gloves (or kids bats or even a small jersey) that your daughter or son outgrew and doesn't use anymore? Something you might otherwise throw away? Would you be willing to share? I realize that I only met one AN-er in person (and I don't think he is around anymore), meaning you guys don't know me and you would have to trust me on this one. I can offer a FanPost after the trip and share the experience with you. Many of you are teachers and perhaps me sharing this experience could even animate a school or two to join the school partnership program with Amani, who knows.

If there is anyone who might wanna help, please let me know. As for logistics - in order for you not to have to pay the oversees shipping (and me not to pay customs if an overzealous custom official has a bad day), a friend of mine with the Army P.O.Box offered to receive one or two packages (more than that would probably be a problem for him). Assuming that someone wants to help, perhaps it would be possible to find one person in the US willing to collect a couple of gloves and then send them together in one package.

Again, I know this is horribly OT, but I do firmly believe that with little effort we could make a difference in a life of a child or two. I apologize to those who, rightfully so, complain about ever growing percentage of OT posts and I hope nobody minds me having posted this.