Welcome!
OPERATION HOME RUN - KANSAS has teamed up with the Operation Home Run organization started by Ben Inks, the Boy Scout in Utah!
Please visit The Official Site of Operation Home Run.
For those who have not heard of the movement, please allow us to explain:
OHR started in two places with no preconceived knowledge of the other. The OHR movement that started in Utah was started by a Boy Scout as a humanitarian project in order to earn an Eagle Scout Merit Badge. Ben Inks after seeing a report on television of kids trying to play baseball under the surpervision of the Special Forces stationed in Afghanistan decided he could help those kids and soldiers by collecting baseball equipment that he would send over to Afghanistan.
The OHR movement that started in Kansas started with a request for a couple of baseball gloves and balls from an American Soldier serving in the Gulf to his dad. The soldier was Marc Knowles and the request became a movement that has cleaned out attics, garages and basements in not only just the Wichita, Kansas area but in many places through out this great country of ours.
The movement that started in Utah became almost storybook as a brave Boy Scout took his quest, and his mother, Kim, all the way to Afghanistan along with enough equipment to start 31 youth baseball/softball teams. Yes, softball also, as six of those teams were comprised of Afghan girls!
The OHR movements became aware of each other and the legend of the Boy Scout and the Soldier was born as both groups decided to merge. Congressman Todd Tiahrt of Kansas' 4th District set the wheels in motion with the proclamation of Operation Home Run America!
OHR has started 10 youth teams in Iraq, 10 teams in the Phillipines and 2 university teams in the Ukraine along with the original 31 teams in Afghanistan. OHR has also supplied our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan with sporting equipment to use to keep those lonely off duty hours from becoming unbearable as those brave soldiers pine for their family and friends 10,000 miles away.
The requests that have come to OHR from the seeds planted in those countries have started to grow. In Iraq it seems OHR has started a quest as more than 90 teams are waiting for equipment so that they too can experience baseball. In Indonesia 75,000 children are wanting to play western culture sports. The fire storm is racing through the Balklands and the Ukraine.
With every child touched by this movement the compassionate hand of the American people is felt. We at OHR feel the way to defeat the ugly spector of terrorism is for the great nation of the United States and her great people to reach out and bring hope to the rest of the world. What better focal point than the joy of bringing baseball and other sports to the children of the world? We here in the land of the Free and the Home of the Brave need to show the rest of the world we value their lives. We need to express that so they will also value their lives. If we can bring the Hope of a Better World to those people and their children we will bring a better world for ourselves also.
If a child is touched the world is changed. OHR has over 600 children in youth programs right now. Help us change the world!
Please visit The Official Site of Operation Home Run.
Kim Inks
Steve Knowles
Ben Inks
Marc Knowles
