As some of the elite college baseball players from around the country prepare to pack their bags and head to Colonial Heights to play for the Tri-City Chili Peppers this summer, they are looking for local families to open up their homes to them. Host families provide a comfortable home to a player or intern and in return, gain a lifelong bond.

In the Tri-City Chili Peppers’ 2021 inaugural season, it was difficult to find host families for the players and interns who would be spending their summer with the team. Not only was it tough to ask people to open their home to a stranger, but the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic made local families even more hesitant to invite a player or intern to stay with them. However, those who did do not regret it.

Nikki Garrett decided to open her home to a Chili Peppers player after her husband found the host family application on Facebook. Her family hosted outfielder Wilson Galvan.

“What we experienced was another child,” Garrett said. “My mom passed away on May 11 of last year. Wilson came into our house about two weeks later, and it was just what we needed.”

Galvan shared similar sentiments about the relationship he formed with his host family.

“I lucked out,” Galvan said. “We just had the best summer.”

The Garretts and Galvan still keep in touch, and the family is making the long trip from Virginia to Texas over Easter weekend to see Galvan play at UT Arlington.

“It’s great because I’ll have those relationships for the rest of my life,” Galvan said.

Galvan did not have a stand-alone experience. Many players shared a similar bond with their host families. Host-family coordinator Brent Ellenburg agreed to host three players from Belmont University for a week at the beginning of the summer until they could be relocated to their host families. Logan Jarvis, Tommy Crider, and Jack Capobianco were crammed into one room in the Ellenburg house with foam mattresses, a mini-fridge, and a TV set up with an Amazon Fire Stick. Despite these close quarters, when it came time for the boys to relocate to the homes of their host families, they didn’t want to leave.

“They said ‘We’ve been talking and we don’t mind the space here. We would like to all three stay together if you wouldn’t mind,’” Ellenburg recalls. “For the entire season, they stayed together and hung out there. Of course, we opened up our living rooms and we have two different living rooms, one where they can go, and they made themselves at home. I think the most memorable piece was that 10 o'clock is what time we usually tried to wake them up on Saturday morning. I would have to just cook lots of protein because these kids are all ‘because we have a game today, I got to get my protein in.’ Basically we would do fruit smoothies and sausage and bacon and eggs and biscuits and gravy. So those Saturday mornings I think everybody remembers.”

The Ellenburg family still keeps in touch with all three of the Chili Peppers players they unexpectedly hosted last summer.

“They really cared about us,” Jarvis said. “They wanted us to feel at home.”

Crider also experienced the homeyness of the Ellenburg household.

“They were a great host family,” Crider said. “They gave us everything we needed and made us feel at home.”

Eric and Anna Heatherly and their five children also hosted last season. In fact, they got to host two different Tri-City players. For the first half of the season, they hosted pitcher Greg Ross and then hosted fellow pitcher Jacob Conover. The Heatherly family is still in touch with both boys.

“It was really cool to build these lasting relationships,” Eric said. “You weren’t sure if it was just going to be a thing if you were just trying to provide a place to sleep and take a shower and do laundry. It became so much more than that.”

The Heatherlys will be opening their home to a Chili Peppers player again this summer.

“You can’t lose,” Heatherly said. “I don’t think there’s any downfall or negative in being a host.”

Once a family hosts a player once, it’s hard to not want to continue the next year to recreate that bond with another athlete. For Jackie O’Hare, the 2021 season will be her fifteenth year hosting. Before the Chili Peppers, she served as a host for the Petersburg Generals for thirteen years and has fond memories of the players who have stayed with her over the years.

“One of the players was from Massachusetts, and he played the guitar,” O’Hare said. “He taught my son what he could that summer, and now my son is the lead guitarist in a band.”

The Chili Peppers are now looking for families to host players and interns for the 2022 season.

“Take that next step, open your house up, and I always tell everybody, we get back as host families more than we give,” Ellenburg said.

You can apply to host a player or intern here: https://chilipeppersbaseball.com/host-family/