Verge: Equipment drive in Labrador gives kids opportunity to play

A recent equipment drive in Nain, the northernmost permanent settlement in Labrador, will give kids the opportunity to play baseball. Photo supplied

June 10, 2025

By Melissa Verge

Canadian Baseball Network

Twelve-year-old Labradorian Cailen Angnatok has yet to hit a home run.

But the bat, ball and glove he went home with thanks to an equipment drive for their small northern community, will mean he’s that much closer to crushing one out of the park.

“Do you think you're going to hit a home run someday?” asked his physical education teacher Matthew Mercer, who contacted vice president of the Paradise Minor Baseball Association, Susan Pennell, about setting up the drive.

“Yeah,” Cailen replied, a student at Jens Haven Memorial School.

The equipment will benefit Cailen and many other kids in the community of Nain, with some of the gear being kept at the school for kids from kindergarten to Grade 12 to use, and the rest going home with them so they can practice baseball on their own.

Their equipment room had previously stocked about 12 outdated gloves, Mercer said, likely dating back to the 1990’s, with one sporting Joe Carter’s name.

He reached out to Pennell, who also works as a guidance counselor for Nain, about organizing the drive because he wanted kids in their small community to have a better opportunity to practice the sport.

The population of Nain is about 1,200 people, and it’s the most northern permanent settlement in Labrador.

“If you have more opportunity you can explore the game,” Mercer said. “I know a lot of the kids are familiar with a home run and stealing bases, [so] just giving them a chance to try the sport with more access,” he said.

It was a province-wide effort, spearheaded by Pennell, to help secure the equipment. She had drop off bins at Premier Sports Academy (owned by her brother, Ryan Sweeney) at M7 Baseball Academy, Paradise Minor Baseball, Conception Bay South Minor Baseball, Mount Pearl Minor Baseball and St John's Minor Baseball. She also received a cash donation from Baseball Newfoundland so she could purchase some of the items that were missing. Sports Craft also helped out by giving her a discount on items that she purchased, and donating baseballs, she said.

All together she collected 29 baseball gloves, 39 bats, 14 helmets, 150 baseballs, two sets of catching gear, two tees, a set of bases, a pitching machine, five duffle bags, a Rawlings net, two potable ball caddies and a bownet along with some miscellaneous items.

Kids use some of the gloves donated in the recent equipment drive in Nain, Nfld. Photo supplied.

Not only will it provide the opportunity to grow the sport in the province, but help teach the kids essential tools that they can use throughout their adult lives, Pennell said.

“You can learn how to deal with adversity, you can learn what you need to do to be successful, it can help you with goal setting,” she said.

“Sometimes, it can just give you a bit of a reprieve from things that are going on in your life so that you have some time to enjoy something.”

For her, sport did all those things, she said.

Now, with this large equipment donation, she wants to give that back to the community she helps support.

“I just like giving that opportunity to the kids,” Pennell said.