The Chico Carrasquel Foundation / Joe Carroll Jaycox

GROK (verb) TO SHARE THE SAME REALITY OR LINE OF THINKING WITH ANOTHER PHYSICAL OR CONCEPTUAL ENTITY.


From the early sixties to the late seventies many young men and women went to Venezuela as Peace Corps volunteers.

As one who has stayed in touch over the years with many former Peace Corps volunteers who served in Venezuela I can tell you that we all share great memories of Venezuela and its' people and no matter where we were assigned from Maturin to Maracaibo we all fell in love with Venezuela. This is Grok!

Over the years it is true that in the United States every Republican administration from Nixon to Bush has shown very little interest in promoting the Peace Corps and budgets were cut regularly until Bill Clinton became our president and increased its' budget.

Now, many of us Americans believe that Senator Obama will win the presidency by a landslide (ojala) and in many of his speeches has stated that he wants to dramatically increase the Peace Corps budget.

• Due to the economic crisis in our Country and in the world the expansion of the Peace Corps will not be his priority so I write this article with the hope that someone in the Venezuelan Government will read this.

Four years ago Chico Carrasquel and I started this non profit foundation in his name. The concept was to perpetuate his life as a role model for all of Venezuela's youths and especially the poorest of the poor kids from the barrios of Venezuela to give them inspiration for a better life and a better future and to promote today's baseball heroes in professional baseball who also came from the same barrios in Venezuela that Chico did in Sarria.

One example of a modern day hero is Carlos Zambrano who until he was discovered was pumping gas in a gas station in Puerto Cabello. All the way back to Andres Gallaraga there are hundreds of great role models from whom Venezuelan children can derive inspiration and hope for a better life in the future.

Right now the board of directors of the Chico Carrasquel foundation is comprised of four former Peace Corps volunteers who served in Venezuela. All of us are much older now or "long in the tooth" as we Irish say who want and need the cooperation and 'free passage' to expand our concept in Venezuela.

There are also two Venezolanos (Caraquenos) on our board who will someday 'take over' and someday within the next two to three years inherit and expand Chico's dream because it is a worthwhile dream.

As president and co-founder with Chico of this non-profit foundation my personal hero is Dr. Jose Antonio Abreu, the founder of El Sistema who proved to millions of Venezuelans and to the world that he could provide musical instruments to poor kids who someday beyond their dreams perform in a symphony orchestra and travel all over the world.

The Chico Carrasquel Foundation's goal is the same as El Sistema but instead of a violin we give a 7 year old a ball and a bat and set up baseball clinics all over Venezuela in Chico's name.

Finally, I ask everyone who reads this article to please read the testimonial letters on our web site that were written by two Venezuelans, John Sanchez and Juan Carlos Paz, who are board members and will someday, God willing, be the leaders of our foundation.

With your help and the help of John and Juan Carlos, this foundation will be run by Venezuelans One of my goals is for the return of the Peace Corps to Venezuela.

This would be the best example of the word GROK.

Joe Carroll Jaycox
President and Co-founder
THE CHICO CARRASQUEL FOUNDATION
http://www.chicocarrasquel.org/
http://www.chicocarrasquel.com/