Curtis Pride has played professional baseball for over 23 years, including 11 years in the major leagues with six different teams.

As a deaf baseball player, his biggest challenge was communicating with his teammates and coaches on the field. After he retired from playing professional baseball, the athletic director for Gallaudet University approached him with an exciting opportunity.

Gallaudet University is the world’s only university in which all programs and services are designed to accommodate deaf and hard-of-hearing students.

Curtis Pride took over Gallaudet University’s vacant head baseball coaching job to help deaf and hard of hearing athletes pursue their dreams. With help from partners like Eastern Automotive, Pride helped build a winning program.

We are honored that we could help Pride build a winning program. For the first time in five years, Gallaudet had their first winning season where they won 25 games, beat four top 20 teams in the country, and succeeded in their division.

Make-A-Wish is a local organization dedicated to granting wishes to children right here in our backyard. Their mission is to create life-changing wishes for children with critical illnesses. For them, granting wishes goes beyond nice things or gifts. They are impactful for everyone involved, including families, sponsors, donors, medical professionals, and the communities, giving them courage and optimism.

Covid-19 has created new challenges for us all and has even forced Make-A-Wish to put a few wishes on hold. Lesli Creedon, the President and CEO of the Make-A-Wish Mid-Atlantic chapter, also explains that isolated children, due to the nature of their illnesses, find their support circles are growing smaller because their families are at risk. In April 2019, about 90% of their wishes – meeting a celebrity or going to Disney World – were put on hold until it is safer. Almost a year later and their wishes remain on pause.

As a part of “The Give” campaign with Easterns Automotive Group, they are currently working to send more of what they call “wish enhancements,” including goodie bags and care packages, to let the children know they are not alone.

They have also partnered with athletes like Tom Wilson from the Washington Capitals, who recently purchased a ton of wish enhancements and surprised them with a message to let them know that he is thinking of them.

It is a pleasure to be apart of “The Give” campaign to help make sure the Mid-Atlantic chapter of Make-A-Wish can continue to make dreams a reality for these children.