PASO ROBLES — A few weeks ago, eight-year-old baseball player Colton Santos had all of his baseball gear stolen out of his car while sleeping in his hotel during a baseball tournament in Fresno. After a long day of playing ball, Santos and his family came out to find their car broken into and all of their expensive equipment missing.
Sad and now without the tools to play the game he loved, his teammates and friends in the Crushers organization put their heads together and came up with a plan to raise money for some new equipment and landed on a lemonade stand. The next day, Monday, Apr. 5, a group of kids grinning ear-to-ear with handmade signs waved over their head, and decent lemonade in their pitcher made their way out to the corner of Rolling Hills Drive in Paso Robles.
Quickly, the residents of Paso Robles began pulling up and donating money, far more money than the average cost of a cup of lemonade. Some gave $5, some gave $10, and then one local resident decided to put a post up on social media, and suddenly the funds began to pour in. After just a few hours in the sun with some lemonade and a Venmo account, the Crushers raised $770. However, the generosity was far from over.
Hearing about what had happened to Santos, Warstic Sports, a sports stick equipment company owned by former MLB player Ian Kinsler, co-owner and founder, Ben Jenkins, Musician Jack White, whom the Crushers Organization recently partnered with, decided to make a donation of their own.Â
“When Warstic partners with a team, we want a team with character. We care about their success on the field, but what they do off the field is most important,” Team Director, Sarah White, of POWER’D by Warstic stated when asked about the donation. “And when I [Sarah White] learned about what the Crushers did for Colton, it made me and the rest of the Warstic team proud to have them representing us. They stepped up for one of their own; that’s the type of young men and women we want on our teams.”
Warstic Sports donated equipment not just to Santos but to the entire team Santos plays on. Altogether, the lemonade stand raised $2513, and rather than buying a single bat for the young eight-year-old who lost his stuff, the Crushers were able to get him all new equipment and new uniforms and apparel.
“It is a one-of-a-kind community,” Central Coast Crushers founder Chad Schoenthal told the Paso Robles Press. “Paso has that true sense of community, and it just continues always.”
