Carly Hensen never thought she would get a response to her letters about her school's lack of baseball equipment, so she certainly didn’t think a major league club would donate new equipment.
But that’s exactly what happened.
According to the Appeal-Democrat, the 13-year-old Meridian (Calif.) Elementary school student, who will graduate Wednesday, will leave behind 25 new baseball gloves, two dozen baseballs, a dozen softballs, and five batting helmets along with bats courtesy of the San Francisco Giants and the Yuba-Sutter Gold Sox.
"I didn't think I was going to hear anything at all," she told the Appeal-Democrat. "They probably get tons of these letters."
The fact that she wrote a letter rather than e-mail speaks volumes about the small-town determination that may have gotten her noticed by the team.
"She puts her mind to something, she's going to do it," Frances Hensen, Carly's grandmother, told the Appeal-Democrat.
For the town's 450 residents, whose elementary enrolls 83 students, it's a big moment.
"It just shocked me," Carly Hensen said. "Giving this to a teeny tiny school in the middle of nowhere — it means a lot. Our school gets overlooked a lot."
Thanks to her efforts, future students at Meridian Elementary who want to play baseball will not get overlooked either.
