Why were Yankees landscaping in Bergen County before facing White Sox yesterday? | Klapisch

Jasson Dominguez remembers what it was like growing up in the Dominican Republic, long before he became known as The Martian. The Yankees had never even heard of him.

Living in a small wooden house that his mother, Dorca Gonzalez, built with limited resources, Dominguez learned how to help. The house, located in the city of Esperanza, sat along an unpaved road. When it rained, traffic would splash water and mud onto the walls. It was Dominguez’s job to get a bucket and start scrubbing.

“My mother wanted the house to always be clean,” the outfielder said. “I learned how important it was to care about other people.”

Two decades later, now a rising Yankees star, Dominguez is still applying those lessons – but not just in the Bronx. On Thursday he was in Leonia, a tiny, leafy borough two miles west of the George Washington Bridge, along with several Yankees teammates helping a family in need.

Instead of Pinstripes, the uniform of the day was a t-shirt that read: HOPE Week, which stands for ‘Helping Others Persevere and Excel.’ It’s the Yankees’ annual charity project – a five-day campaign that doesn’t settle for photo ops in hospitals.

The club instead seeks out five unsung heroes or organizations and celebrates their successes. The idea was hatched in 2009 by Jason Zillo, the Yankees’ vice president of communications and media relations.

From the outset it was Zillo’s goal to find causes that weren’t “disingenuous, vanilla, cookie cutter.”

“If you find something the players will want to do right, it’s a person or a family that has a special, unique, inspiring story,” Zillo said. “That’s when you get buy-in.”

It takes months for Zillo’s staff to select charities and then coordinate the moving parts. Ultimately, the project comes down to a critical question in the Yankees’ clubhouse:

The answer has been the same every year.

This year’s honorees, which began rolling out on Monday, so far include the following:

*Jatee Kearsley, who founded a bakery in Bedford-Stuyvesant. Carlos Rodon, Cam Schlittler and Spencer Jones were among the players who visited her shop and helped bake pastries.

*Dunia Sibomana-Rodriguez, a three-time New York State wrestling champion and a survivor of a vicious chimpanzee attack in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Aaron Judge visited Sibomana-Rodriguez in the Stadium’s Delta 360 Suite, where the Yankees threw him a college send-off party before he begins a wrestling career at the University of North Carolina.

*First Tee, an organization that uses golf to build character for kids in communities that are missing development opportunities. Gerrit Cole, Max Fried, Clarke Schmidt and Trent Grisham were part of a large crew that arrived at the Mosholu Golf Course in the Bronx.

The mission? Play golf and interact with kids who are participating in the chapter’s “Path to College” scholarship program.

On Thursday, the Yankees landed on Brian Schwartz, who launched a non-profit program during the pandemic called “I Want To Mow Your Lawn.” His organization, made up of volunteers nation-wide, offers landscape assistance to the disabled, the elderly and veterans and families in financial distress.

Among those who reached out was Natasha Kim, a single mother who lives with her 69-year-old mother and teenage son. Their lawn needed mowing, weed-pulling and tree-trimming. The task was physically too much for the family, who had found Schwartz’s group and asked for assistance.

Schwartz agreed. But in the meantime the Yankees, looking for HOPE Week candidates, zeroed in on him.

Together, they coordinated for a surprise visit to Leonia from Dominguez, Amed Rosario, Camilo Doval, Fernando Cruz, Ali Sanchez and even general manager Brian Cashman.

At 12:30 p.m. Natasha Kim looked out of her window and initially had no idea why a caravan was outside her front door.

“Oh my God, it’s the Yankees,” said Kim, a Brazilian native. “It was crazy, insane. It wasn’t just satisfying for me, but no one realizes how meaningful it is for my mother, who is getting older and can’t garden the way she used to.”

Despite the team clubhouse opening in less than an hour and a game against the White Sox scheduled that evening, the players put on their work gloves and began a stunning makeover of the property.

Dominguez drove a lawn tractor. Rosario raked dead leaves. Doval moved rocks. Cashman used a power saw to bring down loose branches.

As temperatures crept closer to 90 degrees, the irony became clearer: the Kims weren’t the only ones benefiting from the hard work.

“Serving others is important to me, it’s what I teach my children,” Cruz said. “I signed up to help this family because I could tell by the description they needed it. But I didn’t come here to get attention. I came to serve. I do this with my heart.”

Rosario’s affinity for HOPE Week went even further.

“I would volunteer for all (the events) if I could,” he said. “This is my way of showing my appreciation to the Yankees. I am so grateful to be playing for this team.”

The work continued non-stop until the lawn was trimmed, the weeds were pulled, flowers were planted. Everyone’s t-shirts had darkened with sweat, including the one worn by the highest-ranking member of the organization.

Cashman was the only one who could’ve passed on the grunt work. But he wouldn’t have had it any other way.

“It’s one thing to write a check and honor someone on the field,” the GM said. “But at some point you want to make a difference outside the ballpark. The idea is to be out in the community making a difference.”

Cashman took a moment not just to flick the moisture off his brow, but to take stock of the good will the Yankees brought to an appreciative family in Leonia.

“When you do something like this,” Cashman said, “that’s when the magic happens.”

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