There’s no half measures when it comes to Harwich Mariner's outfielder Bristol Carter. When he hits a single, he begins his plan of attack to score. Stealing second base isn’t enough, if he’s going to give his team the best chance to win, he wants to get home as quickly as possible.

Nothing will slow him down.

Carter is the same way off the field. When he gets an idea in his head there is no stopping him.

Back in January, he began his own foundation, the BC5 Foundation as a conduit to start working with charitable organizations.

“ I've always dreamed and wanted give back to the community,” Carter said.

Carter then called Children’s of Alabama, a children’s hospital in Birmingham, to partner together for the upcoming baseball season.

And true to his character, Carter dove headfirst to give everything he had.

He rallied his teammates to join him. He brought Auburn pitcher John Armstrong in to partner on the ‘Hits & Sits’ fundraiser.

While Carter wasn’t much of a public speaker, he stood up at the team’s preseason banquet to discuss his foundation and kick-off the fundraising campaign.

Five months later, Carter and his teammates raised over $5,000 to Children’s of Alabama. The Southeastern Conference (SEC) recognized Carter for his leadership and work on the campaign by selecting him for its community service team for baseball.

While the money and recognition was great, it was the trip he took with his teammates to the hospital where Carter felt the personal connection.

“This might just be a part of your story”

While it’s unlikely anyone questioned Carter’s decision to choose Children’s of Alabama to partner with for his foundation, his selection was not a random one. Carter himself benefited from a children’s hospital when he was a kid.

At age 12, Carter was just finishing up warmups before a basketball game as his dad, Dan, called the team to the bench to huddle up. Anna Carter, Bristol’s mom, could tell something was not right.

“ I could hear Bristol calling my name and he lost his vision. Then he went down into a complete, grand mal seizure and we just were in shock,” she said.

After rushing Bristol to the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, now Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, doctors determined he had a  bilateral occipital abnormality, an irregularity that occurs in both occipital lobes in the back of the brain, that caused the seizure.

“ They told us at the time, this typically resolves itself, but as a parent you don't [know],” Anna said. “Like resolves when and how, what does that look like?”

Carter then had his second seizure the next day, throwing the family into a panic.

 ”We needed answers quicker than we were getting them,” Anna said. “Doctors deal with those things every day, but as a parent you're just like, I don't deal with this every day.”

Luckily the staff got Bristol into the pediatric neurology department within 48 hours of his first seizure, giving the Carters the answers they needed.

Bristol was diagnosed with epilepsy. Thanks to medication, he never had another seizure, but the family continued to go to the children’s hospital for check-ins for several years.

Then one day as Anna walked out of the hospital with Bristol, she turned to her son and made a prediction.

 ”I said, ‘You know, Bristol, like one day this might just be a part of your story,’” she said.

A match made in heaven

After a year of playing baseball at East Carolina University, Carter transferred to Auburn University for his sophomore season in 2025. With the new change of scenery, it seemed like a great opportunity to build something beyond baseball.

As the family searched through potential organizations, Children’s of Alabama caught their attention. They read through patient stories and saw multiple families write about their child’s experience with epilepsy.

 ”We read those as answered prayers or pointing in the right direction,” Anna said.

Reading those stories was a full-circle moment for the family. After receiving so much care from a Children’s Miracle Network hospital, working with another was an opportunity that could not be passed up.

And with that, Children’s of Alabama became the first beneficiary of the BC5 Foundation.

With the Hits & Sits campaign, fans could sign up for different sponsorship levels based on Auburn’s performance in a game. For example, someone could do the “Singles Sponsorship” where they donate $100 for a game, then donate $10 for every single hit. On the pitching side, the “Gold Level Strikeout Sponsorship” was a $500 game donation and $25 per strikeout by the Tigers’ pitching staff.

Raising the money was just the beginning for Carter and his teammates. On one of their days off, they made the three hour drive to the children’s hospital.

“ Going to see those kids, it meant the world to them. For us baseball players to go see the kids in the hospital that are fighting for their lives,” Carter said. “So for me it's just, it means a lot.”

Carter spent the visit coloring with one young girl as well as playing NBA 2K with a boy, calling the whole experience “awesome”

“ It just impacted them in such a positive way and they loved it,” he said.

The visit had such an impact on Carter he was already looking forward to going back before he made the drive back to school.

“ He's like, ‘We've got it mom. We've gotta do that again,’” Anna said. “It was a really good experience for him and his teammates to go and be able to visit the kids and bring smiles to their faces. But, it made an impact on both groups.”

Growing the foundation

With a full season under their belt, Carter and his family have plans to strengthen their partnership with Children’s of Alabama as well as bringing in new organizations.

When he gets back to school in the fall, he will head to the hospital to spend time with more patients as well as present a check. The foundation plans to start sending sports equipment to a missionary school in Ghana.

With his family’s help, Carter’s impact will go beyond borders. If he’s going to help those in need, he’s going to put his full energy behind it and bring as many people as possible for the ride.

Helping others has always been at the center of Carter’s character. When he was in third grade, he and his mom visited his classmate who underwent back surgery.

While baseball has given him a platform to make a change, the BC5 Foundation allows him to make an impact once his playing days are over.

“It's more than baseball and it's more than the game.”