22 Feb Fort Wayne Mad Ants Lead Charge on Effort to Find Missing Children
By Kayla Stewart, Reporter
FORT WAYNE, Ind. (Fort Wayne’s NBC) – Former Chicago Cub’s pitcher, Dennis Bair, says for nearly a decade he spent countless hours on a baseball diamond.
“I’m in the stadium every night with several thousand people and if a child was missing and their photo was on display on the stadium concourse, then parents would know that thousands of people on a nightly basis are seeing the photo of their child and are aware that she needs to be found.”
He created a charity named Bairfind.
His goal?
He wanted to get missing children fliers in minor league baseball stadiums across the United States.
Along the way he met Tim Bawmann, President of the Fort Wayne Mad Ants.
“As a father of two kids, I can’t imagine what it’d be like for one of them to go missing.”
For the past two seasons, Bawmann has been putting up missing child fliers at the Coliseum for Mad Ants home games.
They’re the first basketball team in the country to do this.
Bawmann says of the 36 fliers they’ve put up so far, 21 of those children have been found safe.
“The fun thing for me is to put a found sticker over their pictures and biographical information to let people know they’ve been located.”
When he brought the idea to the Pacers?
They pounced.
And Saturday?
They were in the game.
As for the Summit City?
Bair is grateful.
“First of all, thank you. And number two, just like my grandfather told me all it takes is guts, and I would say thank you for stepping up for these kids and their families. I can’t wait to get up there, and come to the arena in fort Wayne, shake everyone’s hand in person and say thank you.”
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Original article: http://www.wpta21.com/story/37454970/fort-wayne-mad-ants-lead-charge-on-effort-to-find-missing-children