Local Broker Hits Grandslam for kids

By Brian French
Posted Monday, Feb 11, 2008

It's not often in life that you get a chance to positively affect a whole community, but that is what has happened for us this past year in Burlington, Vermont. Being an avid baseball fan and coach for several years in our wonderful community we realized that we only had one regular size baseball diamond for the largest city in our State. Justone field for6 teams and about 90kids 13-19to use other than at the high school. This in itself created plenty of hardships concerning scheduling, usage and travel distance for the kids. Recognizing the need for another field wetargeted an old men's softball field that was hardly being used,for restorationand reconstruction into a baseball field. Originally it had been a baseball field back in the early 1920's. We formulated a committee of volunteers, got a change of use by the city and were approved tofundraisethe necessary funds to replace the drainage around the field, build dugouts, a new back stop, a utility shed a batting cage anda wholelot more.It wasa huge undertaking and was going to cost over 200k to complete. To make a long story short, we have had some wonderful people jump on board to support and donate a large portion towardsthis project including large donations from a local business man, major league baseball's tomorrow fund and many individual donors. Year to date, we have raised almost enough money tocomplete the project. The drainage system andhalf of the field was installed this past fall and we willfinish the project in the spring of 2008. It has been incredibly rewarding to spear head this "Field of Dreams' project and it has truly takena communityto raise this field. Soon the boys will be able to walk and biketheir way to practice and actually have home games which they have not had in the past on the middle school level for this area of the city. I can't wait to see their faces when it is complete and we are able to yell "Play Ball" for the boys of summer.