Sweet Score for Youkilis

Sue Goerge, owner of Harvard Sweet Boutique, Red Sox star Kevin Youkilis and his fiance, Enza Sambataro. Youkilis' nonprofit, Hits for Kids, has partnered with the Harvard shop.

Red Sox star Kevin Youkilis and a Harvard gourmet sweets company are taking a big swing for kids this spring training season.

Youkilis has partnered with Harvard Sweet Boutique in Harvard to sell baked goods to benefit the baseball star’s charitable organization, Hits For Kids.

Enza Sambataro, Youkilis’ fiancé and president of Hits for Kids, said that she hopes the partnership with Harvard Sweet will spur other Central Massachusetts businesses to consider holding fundraisers with their organization.

But they also want to help Harvard Sweet’s founder, Sue George, who makes a cookie even Youkilis and his strict diet can’t resist.

“He does splurge on these cookies because it’s hard not to when they’re around,” said Sambataro, CEO of Hits for Kids.

Dough For Dough

Customers can purchase Harvard Sweet Boutique’s cookies and brownies and a limited-number of baseballs autographed by the World Series ring holder for $250 to $275.

Twenty percent of the dessert price and 100 percent of the baseball price will benefit Hits for Kids, which has raised $600,000 in four months of operation.

Youkilis and Sambataro met George, a former software engineer turned Internet baker in January 2007 at a fundraiser last year for the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston. George, who was diagnosed with diabetes about 10 years ago, is a Joslin patient and donated cookies in her colorful signature boxes to the 700-person event.

The couple enjoyed her desserts and asked her to donate cookies for a 1,200-person Hits for Kids fundraiser at Mohegan Sun.

“Anything we can do to help her business was how we looked at it,” Sambataro said.

Youkilis and Sambataro attended the event to speak about their charity’s plan to support the Joslin Pediatric Health Services. Youkilis chose the organization because his uncle was diagnosed with diabetes when the first baseman was young and he wants to help prevent child obesity and other health problems, Sambataro said.

Cookie Competition

George is grateful for the World Series ring holder’s support and that Youkilis named her to the Boston Red Sox Cookie Off, which recently aired on WBZ-TV. George’s cookies tied for first place.

But the baker, who also offers a charity package benefitting the Central New England Chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, feels Hits for Kids is doing important work.

“I really believe in what they’re doing,” said George, who works out of her Harvard home and a Hudson kitchen with a few part-time employees. “And it just makes it more fun and meaningful. It makes it more than cookies.”

Along with Joslin Pediatric Health Services, Hits for Kids is supporting the Italian Home for Children and Christopher’s Haven.

The Jamaica Plain-based organization serves abused and neglected children. Christopher’s Haven provides housing for children with brain cancer receiving proton therapy at Massachusetts General Hospital, one of the nation’s few medical centers offering such care.

Hits for Kids is helping Christopher’s Haven lease and operate eight new apartments near Massachusetts General – up from its previous two apartments. An April 13 fundraiser in Boston will help furnish the apartments.

Sambataro said Hits for Kids is considering working with a MetroWest charity that helps handicapped children. 

Sara Withee is a freelance writer based in Millis.

Reprinted from Worcester Business Journal