COMMITTED TO COMMUNITY
Triple-A
EL PASO CHIHUAHUAS
The first week of March, Brad Taylor flew to Arizona, part of a small front office contingent from the El Paso Chihuahuas. Taylor, the club’s senior vice president and general manager, was having a standard, annual preseason meeting with executives from the San Diego Padres, for whom the Chihuahuas are the Triple-A affiliate.
Almost immediately after he returned to El Paso, he realized he would be navigating through a very different season than he was talking about just days earlier.
“One thing we weren’t going to do is sit around, wondering what’s next,” said Taylor, who is also the senior vice president of MountainStar Sports Group, which owns the Chihuahuas.
The Chihuahuas stood up, pivoting amid the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic and using a lost season to still make an impact in the El Paso community. The Chihuahuas are the recipient of Triple-A Freitas Award, which recognizes the top overall operation at each level of the minor leagues.
The Chihuahuas and their employees have worked this year with nonprofit organizations in the El Paso community that have been devastated by the financial impact of the pandemic. According to a team spokesperson, employees have provided more than 1,000 hours of cumulative support to 27 different organizations, including the El Pasoans Fighting Hunger Food Bank, United Way, BorderRAC, Coalition for the Homeless, and Kelly Center for Hunger Relief.
Employees have given help in the form of delivering food to veterans and people without housing. And they’ve also lent support in areas like marketing, sales, website design and videography, crucial elements for these nonprofit organizations to be able to connect with the broader community.
