Two Manitoba Communities Receive 2022 Field Of Dreams Grant

Earlier this year, the Jays Care Foundation announced their 2022 Field of Dreams Recipients. In 2022, they granted $1.2 million in funding to 16 baseball communities across Canada.

 
Photo Credit: @JaysCare on Twitter

Congratulations to all the 2022 recipients from all of us at Baseball Manitoba, and a special congratulations to the two communities within Manitoba, La Salle and Lundar. Continue reading to learn more. 

Lundar Minor Baseball received a grant of $75,000. They hosted an activity night in a local community centre in celebration. 

The Lundar Minor Baseball community eagerly waiting for the announcement.

Blaine Fortin, Manitoba Baseball Hall of Fame Inductee, coach, and Baseball Manitoba Grassroots and Competition committee member, helped to organize the application for Lundar. 

An activity station during the celebration, Blaine Fortin is pictured on the right. 

"We knew about the Jays Care Field of Dreams grants and decided to give it a shot," Said Fortin, "so we filled out the application last fall."

Fortin, along with his wife Erin, Sandra Johnson, and the Lundar Minor Board worked together on the project.

"Sandra has a great deal of experience with the grant application process and her experience was greatly appreciated. The Lundar Minor Board has been very supportive as well," said Fortin. 

Fortin explained that they want to get out on the diamonds as soon as possible.

We didn’t get the early start we were hoping for this spring but the moisture has been great for the diamonds as last year’s drought conditions made it really tough." Said Fortin.

Lundar Minor Ball will use the grant for dugouts and fencing. They weren't able to use their regular facilities until late this summer, but in the meantime, they used a diamond that belongs to a couple that lives in the area. 

"Our community will be forever in debt to Brad and Diana Drew’s for the use of the diamond on their property." Said Fortin. 

Brad and Diana built a baseball field on their property almost 25 years ago and Lundar Minor Ball has been benefitting from it ever since.

"If it wasn’t for them we would not be in the position we are today." Said Fortin. 

Thank you Brad and Diana for your generosity from all of us at Baseball Manitoba!

Stephen Ceslak, grant organizer for La Salle, realized in 2019 that their diamonds were in dire need of repairs. He explained his concerns during a Caisse Community Centre Board meeting, and the decision was then made to begin fundraising. 

"If we have good diamonds to play on, the kids within the community will be excited to play baseball," said Ceslak.

Image of the La Salle Facility earlier this year.

Some renovations were done to the facility in 2020, such as a new layer of infield mix was added on all diamonds, permanent base anchors at several different distances on each diamond and a new double tunnel batting cage was installed, and they built storage boxes for each diamond. 

Once those upgrades were finished, Ceslak knew they still had work to do.

"We needed to re-build our small baseball diamond and another new multi-use fully fenced diamond to serve our rapidly growing community and ball program. We also wanted to add 3-200’ temporary home run fences for the existing softball diamonds in order to host several tournaments/regional and Provincial Championships in the future." said Ceslak. 

Construction beginning in La Salle. 

 La Salle received $85,000 for their project. 

Aerial view of the new field (bottom left).

The upgrades in La Salle are about 50% completed. We wish both La Salle and Lundar good luck as they continue, and we thank them for all their hard work to help baseball in Manitoba thrive. Although the work is still not over, the Jays Care Foundation has helped both communities get one step closer to their final goal.

Facility improvements immensely help communities to grow. Not only will repairs make the diamonds safer for athletes, but they will attract more players, which will help grow registration numbers/increase the number of games and tournaments hosted, which will ultimately support the existing businesses in each community.

Thank you to the Jays Care Foundation for all that you do for baseball in Canada!

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