AMHERST — Late last month, an anonymous donor gave $10,000 to Amherst Baseball, a nonprofit that manages youth programs, in memory of Charlie Read, a 16-year-old baseball player who died in 2016.
What the money will support has yet to be decided.
“It was completely unexpected,” Nate Budington, an Amherst Baseball board member, said of the donation. “We weren’t prepared to have $10,000 dropped in our lap, so this is something that the board has to talk about.”
Amherst Baseball runs youth baseball leagues for athletes and is separate from the school teams. Funds may be used for upgrades such as a scoreboard for the Little League field, or for scholarships for the organization’s sports fees. The group has been raising money and working on renovating baseball fields and facilities over the last few years, Budington said, and cash may go toward that effort.
Read, who lived in Shutesbury and attended Amherst-Regional Middle School, was a dedicated baseball player.
“He challenged himself to learn and achieve, in the dirtiest uniform on the diamond,” his former coach, Todd Rees, said in a statement. “His enthusiasm for his team was bountiful and constant.”
He passed away in August of 2016 at home due to sudden unexpected epilepsy. Read had been diagnosed with epilepsy as a baby and had just a few seizures before he died.
In addition to baseball, he loved other sports, including cycling and hockey, his parents told the Greenfield Recorder in 2017.
“We love you, Charlie,” Amherst Baseball wrote on its Facebook page Wednesday. “And thank you, to whoever out there clearly feels the same way.”
Greta Jochem can be reached at gjochem@gazettenet.com.