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Caring for Baseball Team in Remoted Areas
Over the years the lack of funding has made the upkeep of high school baseball teams increasingly difficult in such remote areas as Hualien, Taitung and Chiayi. Quite a few promising players have opted to pursue their career elsewhere. As such, E. SUN Bank joined hands with the Chinese Taipei Baseball Association to launch the Care for Hinterland Teams initiative. It is meant to help those teams focus on their daily training without having to worry about all the supplies they need to keep it going. In 2007 and 2008, National Tung-Shih Senior High School in Chiayi County and Hualien Athletic Senior High School were chosen respectively as the recipients of the subsidy program; they were provided with brand-new baseball bats, gloves, protective gear, and practice balls.
The Care for Hinterland Teams campaign has been well received since its launch because of its genuine assistance toward keeping financially strapped baseball teams from falling apart. In 2009, many high schools were forced to curtail or disband their baseball teams as the Taiwan economy was still reeling from the aftermath of the global financial tsunami. E. SUN bucked the trend by donating even more baseball supplies to distressed high school teams struggling to stay afloat. Starting out with giving subsidies to one team per year, it is now an annual sponsor of six teams: National Cheng Kung Vocational School in Taitung County, Hualien Athletic Senior High School, Chung Dau High School in Yilan County, National Taichung Agricultural Senior High School, National Tung-Shih Senior High School, and National Pingtung Senior High School.