New York Yankees tip their hats to Rome youth Autumn Blinn for her charitable work

Autumn Blinn, a 10-year-old from Rome, thought just watching a game between the New York Yankees and Kansas City Royals was going to be the extent of her special night Tuesday at Yankee Stadium.

The Yankees had other ideas.

Blinn was a surprise guest of honor as part of the team's fifth annual HOPE Week, a reward that included meeting several players and throwing out the first pitch.

"It was very surprising and exciting," Blinn told ESPN.com. "I said to myself, 'Seriously, these are the Yankees, or is this just a trick?'"

Blinn was honored for her charitable work sewing pillows for hospital patients. The idea started last year, when Autumn's grandmother, Shari, taught her to sew, and they decided to make a pillow for their first project.

Blinn's grandfather John Santiago undergoes kidney dialysis three times a week at Faxton St. Luke's in Utica.

When Blinn's grandfather saw it, he asked if she could make him a pillow on which to rest his arm during dialysis. After John, a Bronx native, showed off his pillow to the other patients, Autumn realized that the spirits of other dialysis patients could be boosted by the gift of a pillow.

Without prompting, she dove into making "Pillows of Love" for as many people as possible. Over the last year, she has made hundreds of pillows for sick children and adults.

Autumn has donated pillows to dialysis patients and pediatric patients at Faxton St. Luke's, residents of the Rome Memorial Hospital facility in her hometown, and for children at both the Ronald McDonald House in Syracuse and Jacobi Hospital in the Bronx.

Before Tuesday's game, a visit by Blinn and some New York Yankees to the Ronald McDonald House in Manhattan cheered up the patients.

"I think [as I make them] that the person who receives this -- they're not going to feel as much pain because it's very comforting," Blinn told ESPN.com. "It was really exciting because everybody was smiling."

From MLB.com: Yankees manager Girardi amazed by Blinn's work

From the New York Post: New York second baseman Cano credits Blinn for doing this from "the bottom of her heart.''

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Source: http://blog.syracuse.com/sports/2013/07/new_york_yankees_tip_their_hat.html

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