This year’s Menlo Atherton Little League Hit-a-thon (HAT) event and the Major’s Home Run Derby will be held on Sunday, May 5th at Burgess Park. It is our league’s main fundraiser and a key opportunity for each of our M-ALL players to feel responsible for supporting their fellow teammates, our league and the greater community. While the HAT event will be a month from now, the fundraising STARTS MONDAY, April 1st!

HAT fundraising represents nearly 60% of our league’s budget. Registration fees cover just under 40% of the operational costs including uniforms and field rentals. Donations during registration make up the remaining. It’s important to note that HAT enables us to keep our registration fees low and provide scholarships for all applicable families to participate.

It is imperative that our league raises significant funds each year, separately from registration fees, to keep our league afloat. Truthfully, without it, we wouldn’t have a Little League close to the caliber that we do.

HAT pays for:
– Field maintenance
– Umpires
– Player & coach development (i.e. batting time, trainings, etc.)
– Safety measures, including a defibrators purchased with previous year’s HAT funds
– Operations & Insurance
– Scholarships
– Special events (e.g. UTL)

This year, our target is to raise $125,000. This target is intended to further enhance our player and coach development programs and expand events like the Under the Lights weekend to better integrate the younger divisions with our Minors and Majors teams. We are also continuing to work with the city(s) to install batting cages at one of our primary fields.

Our primary goal is 100% participation from each team, which means each player receives at least one donation. The goal for each player is to raise at least $250 ($100 for Whiffle division players) but every donation counts so encourage them to get as many as they can. No donations are too big or too small to matter for our league and its kids. There will be prizes both for quantity of donations and top fundraising dollars raised. A high level of participation will almost certainly lead to achieving our fundraising goal.

Here’s the deal: Monday, April 1st, you will receive an email directly from our 99Pledges platform with detailed instructions for your player(s) and team to solicit donations from family, friends and community. This platform provides an easy way to reach out through email, Facebook, Instagram (don’t forget to link their fundraising site) and soon to be provided QR codes available to go door to door to neighbors. Players have had success with calling/ emailing family, knocking on neighbor’s doors and even writing up a note for a parent to post on social media!

This link can be also accessed here: https://app.99pledges.com/fund/mallhat2024

On May 5th, each player will get the opportunity to hit 10 pitches … FAR … to raise money for the league and earn prizes based on individual and team fundraising levels! In addition, Majors level players will be competing in our Home Run Derby, Golden Arm and Base Running competitions. While we acknowledge a per foot donation makes sense given this is an “a-thon”, flat donations are far preferred to enable better tracking of progress toward our goal and simplify the event logistics.

We are also still seeking larger individual corporate sponsors for direct contributions and sponsorship of the Home Run Derby and day of events. Please reach out to Ricky Flores, our league’s Sponsorship Chair (at ricky@margotandricky.com), with any possible leads. Ricky will be sending out further information on our sponsorship opportunities in the days to come.

Please reach out to Mike Rosenthal, our HAT Director, with any questions, ideas or if you just need some encouragement!

Mike Rosenthal
Hit-a-Thon Director
Menlo Tavern Assistant to the Assistant Coach
415-509-6218
hitathon@mabaseball.org