Young Baseball Fan Who Lost Everything in Wildfire Receives Greatest Gift She Could Want
When people have limited time during an emergency to grab things from home before evacuating, they tend to go for the expensive and the irreplaceable.
Family photos, beloved pets and sentimental items top the list.
For 9-year-old Reese Osterberg of Shaver Lake in Fresno County, California, it was her collection of over 100 baseball cards she’d been collecting for three years.
When the Creek Fire wildfire destroyed the family home two months ago, it took the young athlete’s card collection with it.
“When the #CreekFire threatened her #mountainstrong community in the mountains of Fresno County, her family was forced to evacuate,” the CAL FIRE/Fresno County Fire Facebook page shared on Oct. 21.
The ”important stuff” of family members and livestock was safe, according to the post, but Reese had asked her dad to get her baseball card collection, and “with limited time and the stress of evacuation, he forgot to grab it.”
CAL FIRE shared her story along with a request: The department asked for baseball card donations so that Reese and her friends who had lost their homes and collections to the wildfire could start their collections again.
One person who saw the plea was San Jose resident Kevin Ashford, who’d been wondering what to do with the cards he’d been collecting since 1990. He’d been thinking of selling his collection, but when he heard Reese’s story, he knew what he had to do.
“I got to thinking about what I had in the garage,” he told KNTV. “I thought, you know, what of instead of selling them on eBay, I’m going to donate them. I’m gonna donate them all and put a smile on a little girl’s face. I would give anything to see the smile on her face when she receives them.”
Ashford’s collection was no small accomplishment. He could only estimate his haul, and even the estimate was staggering.
“My best guess at this point is probably, and it’s probably underrated, is about 25,000 cards,” he said.
His donation was the largest that Reese received, but it wasn’t the only one. Cards continued to pour in, so many that she felt compelled to pay them forward.
“Reese has decided to pay it forward and help build the collections [of] children everywhere,” CAL FIRE shared on Facebook. “She and her family have created a website where anyone can get involved to build up her collection so she can share cards with other little sports fans.”
Now, cardsfromreese.org exists to redistribute the generous gifts she’s received from donors. She and all her friends have impressive collections now, and she wants to give more away.
She hopes to send cards along with notes of encouragement to children battling for their lives at Children’s Hospital of Central California, a noble endeavor funded in part by many generous collectors.
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