BALTIMORE — Walking inside the Baltimore Animal Rescue and Care Shelter, Pete Alonso and his wife, Haley, were greeted by Fletcher, BARCS’ ambassador dog, and the Orioles’ slugger made it clear where he and the couple’s hearts lie.
“We love animals,” said Alonso, “We love dogs. We adopted two dogs ourselves and we just want to support, I mean, BARCS just does such great things.”
The Polar Bear visits BARCS
A tour of the facility including its medical suite brought BARCS’ mission closer to home.
Engaging with individual animals brought a level of empathy that Alonso and his wife embraced with each stop along the way.
Over the years, many professional athletes have supported BARCS and some still do, but staff here were surprised by Alonso’s visit.
Through their Alonso Foundation, Pete and Haley not only donated $10,000 to the organization, as well as using his stardom to help with an upcoming event.
“Right at the end, we asked him if he could sign a couple of things for our Pawject Runway auction that’s coming up,” said Bailey Deacon, BARCS’ Chief Philanthropy Officer, “Pawject Runway is one of our biggest events of the year. It’s coming up next Friday. The auction raises a lot of money and we thought that a combination of a Pete Alonso jersey and ball would do pretty well in the auction so we’re excited to list it.”
Sure, he’s made a name for himself swatting balls over fences, but Alonso wants O’s fans to know his contributions will extend well beyond the diamond.
“It’s not just baseball for us,” said Alonso, “like we want to embrace everything, not just living here, but being able to give back to the community anyway we can and we think this is an awesome first start.”
