Oct. 7, 2012

LOS ANGELES - The USC baseball team took some time out of their fall practice schedule to give back to the community of Los Angeles on Saturday morning. The team joined forces with the LA Dream Center and helped out those who are less fortunate on Skid Row and in East Los Angeles.

The team split into two groups, with some going to help pass out socks, clothing and food to the homeless along Skid Row. The second group went to high-risk areas of Los Angeles to help pass out food, clean up apartment complexes, assist the residents with projects such as taking out the trash and play with the children of the complexes.

Junior pitcher James Guillen (Covina, Calif./Damien HS) was a member of the group that went to East Los Angeles to help those in low-income apartment complexes.

For Guillen, his favorite part of the day was, "Definitely passing out the pairs of socks to those in need."

"I feel like a pair of socks could go a long way to somebody that is homeless," Guillen said. "The look on their faces, it is like the best present they have ever gotten. It is really rewarding to see the way they act when they received those. Also, I enjoyed cleaning the apartments and playing with the kids and seeing the smiles on their faces. In our eyes, we are not really big-time super heroes, but in their eyes they look up to us, so it was really rewarding to go down there, see that and give back."

On how the service project affected the team, Guillen explained, "Today definitely put our lives in perspective. We are blessed to be able to play the beautiful game of baseball every day. Sometimes we may get frustrated by the way that we perform, but we forget that there are people in this world with real problems. It is incredible that there are places on Earth like Skid Row. It definitely puts everything in perspective and you realize what a golden opportunity we have to go to such a great school and really how blessed we are to be Trojans."