CLEVELAND — Everyone could use a few words of encouragement now and then and for a foster child, those words can make more than your day. There are over 400,000 children in the foster care system today.
Cleveland Guardians pitcher Cal Quantrill and his wife Eastin are doing their part to make sure they know they matter. This season they have been collecting letters to distribute to foster care children, proving that a handwritten note never goes out of style.
“It’s nice to know that something that we feel good about is having the impact that we want it to,” Quantrill said.
Eastin began volunteering with an organization called Letters to Foster Children during the COVID-19 pandemic. The organization hit close to home, as she gained three cousins to her family through the foster care system.
“She just felt like this was something that impacted her life and it was such a positive impact and we wanted to use that to segue into something we could do,” Quantrill said.
For the 2022 season, the couple launched a player program for letters to send to foster children called Letters with Love. Partnering with Letters to Foster Children the program aims to spread positivity, confidence, and love to foster children throughout Cleveland and Phoenix.
“It’s created this avenue for us to get outside of this bubble that’s baseball and touch some lives,” Quantrill said.
The Quantrills have asked fans, staff, and teammates to help spread the word and write their own letters to share with foster children in their local community. Anyone with paper and a pen can join the Guardians pitcher in his efforts to spread joy.
“Most of the clubhouse has written a letter for me and I’m proud to say that I did not force that, that was natural and organic,” Quantrill said. “I took a look at some of the ones I had written by the players and I think you’d be surprised and happy to know that they’re more than just athletes, there’s some pretty creative things drawn and written.”
Letters to Foster Children hopes to combat a growing number of children in the system with words of encouragement sent to foster children across the United States. Letter collected at the ballpark, paired with a recipient, and delivered.
“We spend a huge amount of time in these communities that we play in, it becomes our home,” Quantrill said. “We have this unique job where a couple hundred thousand people, maybe a million people get to see me do my job, but I never get to be a part of their lives.”
The couple will be hosting 20 foster children at the Guardians playoff games throughout the weekend. They’re still collecting letters through the end of the season and plan to keep the program going into next season.
Fans can simply bring their letters to the ballpark or mail them to Progressive Field addressed to ‘Letters with Love’ to participate.
“If you catch me around town you can give them to me, If you’re asking for an autograph I’ll trade autographs for letters,” Quantrill said.
The Guardians take on the Tampa Bay Rays in Game 1 of the Wild Card Series Friday afternoon at 12:07 p.m.
