Former Cub Kerry Wood Hosts Fourth Annual Woody's Winter Warmup
(CBS) -- When pitcher Kerry Wood retired a Cub, he knew he wanted to stay in Chicago and give back.
"After I left for Cleveland and the Yankees I knew I wanted to come back, retire a Cub and it would be the last city I wanted to play in and where we wanted to raise our kids and have the family be so we thought it was time to launch the foundation, so we did that that year and it's been great," said Wood.
Over the years, The Wood Family Foundation has dedicated a playroom at Lurie's Children's Hospital, held a baseball clinic in Englewood and now an after school mentoring program in Lawndale.
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"The Pitch In program is kind of our baby now. We've taken on a a school in Lawndale, Lawndale Community Academy. We've got 20 4th graders and every Tuesday we mentor them after school. We have a program designed for them throughout the school year. We have a different program each month and it teaches them about money, a program about health and how to take care of their bodies and other things." said Wood. "Our target neighborhoods are Englewood, Humboldt Park, Lawndale and Austin."
Wood says this year's 4th annual Woody's Winter Warmup will benefit the foundation and get Cub fans excited for the upcoming season.
"This is one of our signature events. We timed it with the Cubs convention, all the players are in, everyone is excited about talking about baseball again, Spring Training is right around the corner. We have a musical act play, we get all the Cubs players to bartend and compete for tips and we have fun with it," said Wood.
Wood says he expects Theo Epstein and current Cubs players to be there and past players like Gary Matthews Senior and Rick Sutcliffe.
Wood says he hopes to raise $100,000 for the mentoring program. General admission tickets are $125 and all proceeds benefit the Wood Family Foundation and its after-school mentoring program, Pitch In. You can find out more about the event by visiting WoodFamilyFoundation.org.
