Founded/Pilot Program

The Youth Baseball Program was established by the DEA Educational Foundation in 2019, and piloted in 5 cities. After a successful pilot program, the YBP expanded to include 9 cities in the 2020-2021 school year. Now, in 2024 the Baseball program is reaching nearly 1,000+ youth in 20 cities. In the DEA Educational Foundation’s many endeavors to reach the American public about the dangers of drugs, it will use baseball as a vehicle to reach out to youth across the nation with this message of the importance of focusing on healthy activities and remaining drug-free. The program will also bring a valuable and uniquely youth friendly side to DEA and open doors to grassroots community programs, centers and schools. In addition to local DEA agents and community baseball organizations working with the children as mentors,

DEA agents and the DEA Educational Foundation will come to local schools to speak to children about the dangers of drugs and the importance of healthy decisions. The program will serve all ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds, as well as both boys and girls.

Curriculum

The long-term goal of the YBP is to increase resistance against drugs and accompanying violence, while focusing on healthy behaviors in community schools throughout the nation. We use the tagline “Strike Out Drugs'' to get kids excited about our mission with a clear stance that we want to eradicate drug abuse. This is accomplished by offering students in grades 3-8 the opportunity to participate in an alternative activity: baseball. This is achieved through a number of steps:

1. Drug Awareness assembly at a local school;
2. Opportunity to play baseball with mentors (including all needed supplies) at a local field for ten or twenty week sessions or specialized workshops;
3. Possible class trip to a baseball game; and
4. Scholarships in local baseball programs (such as Little League).

In each city, the DEAEF will partner with a local, underserved school and provide an educational assembly, the opportunity for 15 kids to sign up for weekly baseball lessons and practices (including transportation to field), a special opportunity to see a game played in their community and a scholarship to one or more keenly interested students to play in a local league or a hybrid of virtual classroom and in-person classes.