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Cleveland-based Christian group takes equipment to baseball-loving Iraqi refugees

Breakaway Outreach Co-founder Jimmy Larche, right, loads donations from the Chattanooga Choo-Choo's Director of Sales Annie Still to share with Iraqi, Syrian and Sudanese refugees in Germany. In the background, Larche's wife, Cindy, left, German visitor Finni Eigenbrodt and Adam Bowerman examine the gifts. Breakaway Outreach Co-founder Jimmy Larche, right, loads donations from the Chattanooga Choo-Choo's Director of Sales Annie Still to share with Iraqi, Syrian and Sudanese refugees in Germany. In the background, Larche's wife, Cindy, left, German visitor Finni Eigenbrodt and Adam Bowerman examine the gifts.

By Lynda Edwards May 21, 2016 7 min read

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The gift of fun: Local Christian group takes equipment to baseball-loving to Iraqi refugees

Jimmy Larche, center, and his son, Zach, left, transport donations of sportswear from the Lookouts' front office. Breakaway Outreach, which Larche helped create, will distribute the items to Iraqi, Syrian and Sudanese refugees in Germany.

Cindy Larche, right, and Finni Eigenbrodt, a visitor from Germany, load donations of sportswear from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Mocs to share with Iraqi, Syrian and Sudanese refugees in Germany.

Chattanooga Lookouts' Ticket Partnership Director Andrew Zito, right, examines donations for Jimmy Larche and family, who represent Breakaway Outreach, a ministry based in Cleveland. The group gathered donations of sportswear from the Lookouts, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Mocs and Chattanooga Choo-Choo to share with Iraqi, Syrian and Sudanese refugees in Germany. From left are Zach Larche, Cindy Larche and Jimmy Larche.

Iraqi refugee children who fled their war-torn country are now staying in Osnabruck, Germany. This summer, Breakaway Outreach, a Cleveland, Tenn.-based Christian group, is taking them a collection of baseball equipment, T-shirts from Chattanooga attractions and sports teams and other items.

The first stop is AT&T Field, where the Chattanooga Lookouts play.

Breakaway Outreach Pastor Johnny Larche, his wife Cindy, their 12-year-old son Zach and their German house guest, Finni Eigenbrandt, are crowded into a business lobby with a coffee table composed of a glass oval atop a sculpture of a player sliding into home. Lookouts Ticket Partnership Director Andrew Zito carries in a box full of T-shirts in Crayola-bold blue, red and other colors – a perfect gift for Iraqi refugee children now living in Germany who are crazy about baseball and love clothing emblazoned with American logos.

“I’m hoping I’ll have more for you in your next visit,” Zito tells the Larches. “It’s great that you’re doing this for those kids.”

On a mission trip this summer, the Larches plan to bring the gifts to Germany and start coaching baseball teams composed of the refugee children. Their group, a Cleveland, Tenn.-based nonprofit, has about 25 churches in the Chattanooga and North Georgia area that volunteer for outreach programs to domestic violence shelters, children of prison inmates and kids in homeless shelters.

The kids from Iraq carried their love for baseball with them when their families were forced to flee the region’s continuous violence. The Larches will be visiting German refugee housing – initially built for French officers overseeing post-World War II Germany – in Osnabruck, a mountain town of medieval turrets and stone houses in a forested valley. Eigenbrandt is a volunteer with one of Breakaway’s sister churches in Germany, and she brought kids from the camp by train to a Berlin sports camp where they could use batting cages and practice another American pastime, basketball.