International Softball Federation (ISF) President Don Porter visited the Sun Village charity project in rural Beijing on Monday and invited one of them to throw out a ceremonial first pitch at the Olympic venue on Thursday.
The orphan Li Yufeng, age 7, showed her talent at softball and clearly impressed Chinese Olympic softball player Zhou Yin, who was also on-hand during the visit, when softballs, bats, gloves, and field equipment were handed out by Poter.
Li was invited to throw out a ceremonial first pitch before Thursday's first game between Australia and the host China, which would also be watched by some of the other children, who were given game tickets by the ISF.
The Sun Village Project is located in the Shunyi district of the rural suburbs of Beijing, where a team of volunteers provide education and support to the 100 children, helping them have a positive start in life.
Porter commented, "It was wonderful to visit Sun Village and very touching to see the enthusiasm in the young children. They have had a tough start in life and hopefully our donation will help them enjoy our great sport in their spare time.
"Inspiring these children is just the sort of thing softball can achieve, as has been the case with so many other youths worldwide."
Porter, who is in Beijing for the softball competitions at the Olympics, also aiming to promote the namely "BackSoftball" campaignas the sport was voted out of the 2012 Games and try to get the sport reinstated onto the Olympic program for 2016 Games.
"China has given everyone working for the BackSoftball campaign a wonderful welcome and with the tickets for the Olympic Softball tournament having sold out a while back," said Porter.
"Perhaps some of these children will be inspired to compete after watching Thursday's game if we're successful in getting the sport re-instated onto the Olympic programme in 2016," he added.
More than 300,000 tickets for all softball games at the Beijing Games were sold out earlier by June, further underlining the strength of the global BackSoftball campaign led by the president.
Source:Xinhua
