Help for Boys & Girls Club baseball team

Our local B&GC 12yr old baseball team is one of ten teams from across the nation to qualify for the Cal Ripken World Series in Winchester, MA in two weeks. The Cal Ripken organization is paying for the players and coaches airfare, and the Marriott hotel in Burlington is making rooms available for $115 night for players and family. The problem is finding rental vehicles for something less than an arm and a leg. Since there are 10 players and 3 coaches, we need to find a 15 passenger van. Local rental agencies are quoting weekly rates of over $900. There will also be appx. 30 family members making the trip that will need transportation between the hotel and the ball park in Winchester.

This team is the first from our little town to ever win the SW regional qualifier tournament and first to play in the World Series. We've played in 3 out of town tournaments this summer in order to qualify for the World Series, so travel funds are pretty much exhausted. Any information on where we could find reasonably priced transportation in the Boston area would be greatly appreciated.

Is your group part of the Boys and Girls Clubs Clubs of America? That is an Internal Revenue Service approved charitable organization for tax-deductible contributions.

Good luck with your endeavor.

JDiver, Senior Moderator

Yes, they're a group of all stars from our local Boys & Girls Club league representing the SW region (AR, TX, OK & NM). Donations are tax deductible and we've been holding local fundraising events. The problem is we only have a little over two weeks to get money together for the trip from the time the regional winners were determined 3 weeks ago. We've been able to raise a fair amount of money so far given there are only about 15,000 people in our hometown, but far from what we'd like to have to make this a memorable trip for the players.

The kids, and most of the parents, will fly out next Tuesday (8/7) for Boston. Rental prices for 15 passenger vans are running almost $1000 for the week. I even called to inquire about renting a couple of used Suburbans from used car dealers in the Boston area but was told it wouldn't be possible in Mass. Was hoping someone on FT knew of inexpensive rentals in the Boston area. We rented an older van this summer near Mt Rushmore for half what a name brand rental agency was asking, so I thought there might be something similar in the Boston area.

Thanks for any ideas or information you might have that'd help stretch our limited resources.