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Behind every foster parent is an incredible story — and Jesse Cole is no different.
Best known for wearing a yellow tuxedo as the face (and founder) of the Savannah Bananas, Cole has dedicated his life to two things: baseball and family.
His take on the sport, known as Banana Ball, combines baseball and entertainment for millions of fans across the country — much like the Harlem Globetrotters do for basketball fans.
But beyond the yellow tux, Cole and his wife Emily are parents to three young children — two of whom they met through the foster care system.
Despite already having a 2-year-old son Maverick, they became licensed foster parents and were quickly matched with a non-verbal 2-year-old girl named Kenna.
One year later, they took in a second baby girl Addison, who was just six days old as a detoxing infant.
"This all started with my wife. I mean, she's got a heart that just cares for people in a different way than most," Jesse Cole said in a Sept. 11 interview with “Today” in New York City.
"And with anything, we don't just say, 'Let's go do something.' We just start," he added.
While the primary goal behind foster care is to “reunite kids with their birth parents,” Cole said that “wasn’t the best scenario” for Kenna and Addison.
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"And so after over 1000 days, it was finally approved to fully adopt them into our family,” he explained to “Today.”
By that time, Kenna was no longer a non-verbal child — and Addison had grown to be a healthy baby girl.
Now several years later, the family of four get to travel the country together as Jesse and Emily Cole homeschool their kids along the way.
But the couple knew they could do so much more.
Jesse Cole and his wife launched Bananas Foster in 2023
With the platform they had through the Savannah Bananas and experience they had as foster parents, Jesse and Emily Cole launched a nonprofit organization called Bananas Foster.
According to its website, the nonprofit is “dedicated to celebrating the foster care community while educating and inspiring others to get involved.”
As part of their mission, they feature a foster families at every Savannah Bananas game.
The families, known as the Bananas Foster Family (BFF), are given a Very Important Banana (VIB) experience at the game, which includes a meet and greet with players and a stadium shoutout.
"I'll never forget the first night we honored a family that had 15 or 20 foster kids that have come through their home, and the stadium rose up in a standing ovation," Cole said in his interview with “Today.”
"You could see the emotions. I was like, 'This is it,'" he recalled of the moment.
Last month, he extended that moment to his once-non-verbal daughter Kenna.
In an Aug. 11 Instagram post, Jesse Cole explained how Kenna has always dreamed of doing the fan warmup before the show — where a young fan gets to lead the crowd in a pregame warmup routine.
Despite wanting to save that moment for the fans, Jesse and Emily Cole made an exception for their daughter on her 7th birthday.
“Knowing how far our amazing girl has come over the last four years, I knew how much this would mean to her,” Cole wrote in the post.
“So we surprised her and she got to lead the warm up in front of our biggest MLB stadium crowd we’ve ever had,” he said of the crowd, which exceeded 50,000 fans.
As for how far the family has come in such a short time, Jesse Cole hopes his and his wife’s story inspires other parents to join in on a foster journey.
"When you first start, you're not going to be great at anything,” he told “Today.”
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"Just get started if you feel you have a heart to do it. It's going to be hard, but it's going to be worth it, and that's what we try to share every day,” he added.
