Bravehearts

The Harvey Ball World Smile Foundation has donated $1,600 to local Worcester non-profit Why Me / Sherry's House in recognition of the 16 home runs the Bravehearts hit at Hanover Insurance Park in 2018.

According to their website, Why Me was started in 1985 by 13-year-old Sherry Shepherd during her four year battle with cancer. In the last months of her life, Sherry became determined to do something that would have a lasting value in the community to help children with cancer. With the help of her dad, she founded the non-profit organization WHY ME, which stands for Worcester Help for Youth, Memories Everlasting. Now the organization offers a comprehensive approach to supporting the entire family through a pediatric cancer diagnosis. Through their all-encompassing support services and programs, families find the tools and assistance needed to manage everything that happens after the diagnosis.

It was Charlie Ball - Managing Director of the Harvey Ball World Smile Foundation in Worcester - who approached the Bravehearts about the collaboration in May. The team worked together with Charlie to develop the promotion in which the Harvey Ball World Smile Foundation would donate $100 for each home run the Bravehearts hit at Hanover Insurance Park at Fitton Field in 2018. The promotion also offered $250 additional if the home run was a grand slam or a walk-off home run. Unfortunately, neither of those events ever occurred, but the Bravehearts still tied their previous record of 37 total home runs (home & away) set in 2016 on their way to a co-championship in the Futures League.

In conjunction with the promotion, the Bravehearts also hosted a "Smiley Face T-shirt Giveaway" in June and welcomed "Smiley" himself - mascot for the Harvey Ball World Smile Foundation - at a game on July 29th.

The Harvey Ball World Smile Foundation was established in 2001 to honor the name and memory of Harvey Ball, the artist who in 1963 created that international symbol of goodwill, the smiley face. Harvey Ball believed that each one of us has the ability to make a positive difference in this world and he lived according to that belief. He knew that any effort to improve the world, no matter how small, was worthwhile. And he understood the power of a smile and a kind act. In furtherance of that philosophy the Harvey Ball World Smile Foundation focuses on small, grass-roots charitable efforts that otherwise receive little attention or funding.