Grade 5 student Xander Amero tries out new equipment at Herald School provided by the Jays Care Foundation.--Supplied Photo
zmason@medicinehatnews.com
With baseball season just around the corner, fans across the country are still stinging from the Blue Jays’ World Series loss last year. But one Medicine Hat school is already making new memories with Canada’s MLB club.
Herald School is the latest in the Hat to become an affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays’ Care Foundation. Vice principal Chelsea Hallick applied for the school to receive support through the charitable baseball programming foundation.
“It’s an amazing opportunity,” she said. “It comes back to connecting to community and giving our students a different opportunity they may not have experienced before, and all while working on the primary goals of teamwork, resilience and belonging.”
Jays Care Foundation collects money from 50/50 raffle tickets sold when the Toronto Blue Jays play ball, and invests it into community baseball infrastructure projects.
Over the past decade, 14 community organizations, 12 Indigenous communities and 139 schools in Alberta have received support from the foundation. The foundation has also invested more than $1.2 million into refurbishing community baseball diamonds across the province.
Herald School is the sixth school in Medicine Hat to receive support through the program. It has been selected to operate two Jays Care programs: Challenger and RBI.
The Challenger program is an adaptive baseball program designed for youth with disabilities. It was a natural fit for Herald, which operates a Life Skills program that assists children with medical considerations, developmental delays, or complex cognitive profiles that require additional support.
The RBI program is designed for youth facing financial barriers to participation.
Affiliation with the Jays Care program provides participating schools with curriculum to operate selected programs, as well as training for staff on operating programs, new high-quality baseball equipment and a package of Toronto Blue Jays merch for students.
On its end, Herald plans to launch the program when the snow melts in April. According to program parameters, the school has to provide at least one to two hours of intramural baseball for at least eight weeks.
Some teachers have elected to incorporate the baseball programming into their gym curricula to give their students more chances to engage.
Herald received a shipment of equipment that includes a classroom supply of baseball gloves, four batting helmets, four sets of tees, baseballs, softballs and wiffleballs.
Hallick says the quality and volume of equipment exceeded expectations.
“At the admin level, you’re always looking for opportunities for the kids to access things that they may or may not get and to build skill in areas that they may or may not get opportunities to elsewhere,” said principal Blair Lukacs.
“It’s kind of the ultimate thing that you can really ask for. It’s a well-supported, well-funded program, and the skills in the staff and the interest in the kids will be with us long-term.”
Following the Jays’ historic season last year, the timing couldn’t be better. The school embraced the national baseball fervour, putting on jersey days for students. With the appetite for baseball across the country riding a high, Lukacs says it’s special to give students a personal tie in to Canada’s team.
“You would suddenly see kids trying to track down gear we hadn’t seen previously. Hockey is the big one, of course, so it’s really neat to see, at an elementary school in Medicine Hat, the way the sport has had success on one end, and then it grows across the country,” he said.
Hallick says the school plans to wrap the program with a tournament. She hopes Herald can collaborate with some of the other schools in the city that have participated in the Jays Care program to put on a special celebration for students.
The Alberta government announced a memorandum of understanding with Jays Care Foundation on Friday that will allow Albertans to buy Jays Care raffle tickets online during Jays games, starting with the 2026 baseball season.
“The proceeds from this expansion will help extend our reach and impact across the province, giving thousands more kids the chance to build character, resilience and a sense of belonging through baseball,” said Jays Care Foundation board chair James Dodds.
Minister of Tourism and Sport Andrew Boitchenko says he is happy to see more initiatives like this one help Alberta children play sports they love.
“Sport plays an important role in the wellbeing of our communities. It brings people together, helps our kids and youth build confidence and creates opportunities that extend far beyond the diamond.”
