AMBASSADOR HERBST PRESENTS $8,000 OF BASEBALL EQUIPMENT TO ORPHANAGES IN ZHYTOMYR

U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst will present $8,000 worth of new Wilson Sports baseball equipment to two orphanages in Zhytomyr. Ambassador Herbst will present equipment to the Zhytomyr orphanage, located at 10 Korabelna str., Zhytomyr, at 10:30am on Saturday, March 20. Additional equipment will be presented to the Radomyshl Orphanage on Friday, March 19. After the orphanages are presented with the equipment, trainers from the American Little League Baseball will begin teaching the children how to use the equipment and how to play baseball. Press is invited to both ceremonies and the following training sessions.

The District Administrator for Little League in Ukraine, Basil Tarasko, facilitated sending the sports equipment, valued at $8,000, to Ukraine. There is enough baseball equipment, including balls, bats, gloves, batting tees, and bases, to allow fifty children from ages nine to eleven to play baseball. Tarasko, his colleague Harold Weissman from New York, and his assistant Chief coach Vitaliy Lizogubenko from the State Committee for Sports of Ukraine are training teachers and older children from the Zhytomyr Oblast orphanages to coach baseball. This spring, the children will participate in a season of Little League Baseball, culminating in a final tournament to be held this June.

Tarasko, a Ukrainian American from New York City, has been coming to Ukraine as a volunteer since 1991 to coach and teach American baseball. He has secured and shipped thousands of pounds of baseball equipment donated by various American Little Leagues to Ukraine. He regularly cooperates with the Canadian charitable organization Help Us Help the Children Fund.