McDonald’s makes big contribution to Little League

Baseball has helped turn weekends in the CNMI into a meeting place of sorts where the parents, friends, and families gather together in Oleai to watch the youngest generation of local players compete in what many deem as the favorite sport of the Marianas.

Battle cries echo from out of the dugouts, and encouraging cheers resonate from the bleachers as onlookers offer their backing, but with a large donation by McDonald’s to the Saipan Little League Baseball Association last week, support comes from the rest of the community as well.

“When it comes to the kids I get very excited. Baseball is a very special thing in my heart because we have a McDonald’s team. When we first put together the team their record was 0-22. That was fun,” said McDonald’s franchise owner Joe Ayuyu.

McDonald’s fielded a team in the 2004 season, but Ayuyu mentioned that his level of participation fell off a bit from that of 2003. That has changed now, and he thanked Little League president Joe Salas for approaching him during the off-season.

“Last year for some reason, I wasn’t too involved, but thanks to [Salas], he came around and said ‘Mr. Ayuyu, we want you to get involved again’ so I said ‘Okay.’ This year I made a commitment to the president and to the team here that I will again be a major sponsor for the team. I committed a certain amount of money already to the president, and the only thing I ask is that the president do what’s best for the kids,” said Ayuyu.

Ayuyu and McDonald’s actually donated $3,000 to the SLLBA, and have done so because of the interest in getting each of the players an individual award to reflect their participation in the league regardless of their team’s record at the end of the season.

While Ayuyu is happy to be able to give back to the community by supporting the league, he sees the SLLBA as more than just an organization that teaches the children the fundamentals of sport, but one that can instill some values as well.

“I am very honored to be a part of this. I think what the board is doing is very exciting, very interesting, and good for the kids. You know, the other day we saw an article in the paper about kids doing graffiti at the American Memorial Park. I think that the young kids joining the Little League is a very good idea to keep them away from doing things like that.”

Ayuyu has been a sponsor for the past three years, and he is still as happy about sponsoring the team as he was in the beginning. He said that he would continue to be a contributor to the SLLBA as long as he is able to do so.

“I have a lot of young kids myself. I know that Little League has been around for a long time, and I hope that it will continue to be a strong program for the young people here in Saipan. As you know, the biggest challenge of the group is trying to find who will be the major sponsor, so I told him that I want to commit myself to helping them. I expect every year we can do it.”

While the impact of Ayuyu’s donation to the SLLBA will be felt by each of the participants in this year’s edition of hardball, he said that the credit for the strong foundation of the league belongs to the small army of parents and fans who offer their time, both on and off the field, to give the kids something productive to do on the weekends.

“The credit really goes to the volunteers. The way I look at it is that these are the people who are really making a big difference on the kids. My participation is really minimal, but the people who make it work are the people right here in front of you. Without them I don’t think that we’d have a very strong Little League program.”