Pete Alonso, wife donate $10,000 to BARCS in Baltimore visit

The whiteboard at BARCS set the tone before Pete Alonso and Haley Alonso even got inside: “Polar Bears Welcome!” The Baltimore Orioles first baseman and his wife visited Baltimore Animal Rescue and Care Shelter on Tuesday, April 14, 2026, and delivered a $10,000 donation through The Alonso Foundation to a shelter that takes in nearly 1,000 homeless, neglected and abused animals every month.

For BARCS, that money lands in a place where the needs never slow down. The nonprofit says it is Baltimore City’s open-admission shelter, the largest animal shelter and pet adoption center in Maryland, and it operates 365 days a year. Its donation support helps cover food, shelter, medical care and adoption services for the animals that come through its doors, along with the steady work needed to move pets from intake to adoption. BARCS was founded in 2005, and its role has only grown as a safety net for city animals whose owners can no longer care for them or who arrive in crisis.

The visit was personal for the Alonsos as well as public-facing. Pete Alonso said BARCS does “great things” and that he and Haley wanted to support the shelter because they love animals. The couple has adopted two dogs, and that experience gave the tour added meaning as they met the dogs and cats currently housed at the shelter. Alonso also spent part of the visit with a dog named Fletcher, a small moment that made the check presentation feel less ceremonial and more like a genuine connection to the work BARCS does every day.

The donation also fits into Alonso’s early chapter in Baltimore. He signed a five-year, $155 million contract with the Orioles on Dec. 11, 2025, and has already begun showing he intends to make an impact beyond Camden Yards. His charitable work with Haley has included The Alonso Foundation’s Homers For Heroes initiative, which began during the COVID-19 pandemic, and a 2024 focus on animal rescue that sent $1,000 per home run to programs helping animals, especially dogs, leave kill shelters and receive toys and pet supplies.

For Baltimore, the $10,000 gift does not solve the city’s sheltering challenge, but it does buy real capacity at an institution that carries a large share of that burden. At BARCS, every donation helps keep the doors open, the kennels moving and the adoption pipeline alive for animals that would otherwise have nowhere else to go.