School awarded $150,000 grant for ballfields

By James Grob, jgrob@charlescitypress.com

A simple greeting and handshake from 7-year-old Sebastian Parrott just might have sealed a $150,000 deal.

Parrott was among a group of eight students from the Charles City and Immaculate Conception Elementary schools who traveled to Altoona in April to make a pitch for new ball diamonds.

Upon further review, the pitch was a fastball right down the pike — and a called strike.

“They swept the board away,” said Dana Sullivan. “The kids completely impressed them at Prairie Meadows.”

Charles City was one of 25 finalists for a Prairie Meadows Legacy Grant to go toward the construction of new baseball and softball fields near the high school. Each finalist group was allotted 15 minutes to present its final argument why it should be chosen to receive a grant, which Sullivan, Charles City assistant softball coach, had applied for in February.

“For them to think of Charles City, Iowa, they obviously saw a spark, they saw something worthwhile,” Sullivan said. “They looked at the kids and said, ‘you did a phenomenal job. You came in and got the job done.’”

Sullivan said that Parrott set the tone, when he walked into the board room at Prairie Meadows and shook each of the board member’s hands as he introduced himself. The other students followed suit.

Sullivan said that one of the board members commented that the board has listened to a lot of great projects, all from grown-ups, but the Charles City kids “blew the adults out of the water.”

The group ranged from elementary students to current members of the varsity teams who want fields they can depend on not being washed out almost every time it rains. The students were the aforementioned young Sabastian Parrott; along with Atticus Parrott, then a junior baseball player; Rachel Chambers, then freshman softball; Kaden Barry, then sophomore baseball; Emerson Bohlen, then sixth grade; Lydia Staudt, then freshman softball; Brynlee Sullivan, then first grade, IC School; and Miya Rimrod, then 6th grade, IC School.

The kids presented the arguments in language they wrote themselves, concerning the need for new baseball and softball facilities. They’d rehearsed their arguments several times to “tough audiences” in Charles City, and included hard statistics — last summer the baseball program played only seven out of 30 scheduled home games at home — as well as personal narratives. For instance, the softball program was able to save seven games by taking huge sponges — actually foam couch cushions — shop vacs and sump pumps to get their field ready for a handful of games.

The group also presented a written summary, full of pictures of flooded fields, kids helping with cleanup efforts and plans for the diamonds near the high school.

The students pointed out the loss of home-field advantage in games, the reduced availability of practice time in real playing conditions and the loss to the community of fewer visiting teams and fans traveling here to play games and spend money in the city while here.

Prairie Meadows presents grants regularly to need-based community projects that impact youth and that would help a wide range of people, Sullivan said.

“I think it’s a really big deal that someone quite a distance away from us is willing to put up a huge financial gift,” she said. “It says a lot about this community and this project. The students and adults couldn’t be more thankful for them believing in us.”

The money will go into the general fund of the baseball/softball complex project. The project is for the construction of one natural grass softball field and one baseball field with a natural grass infield and outfield.

In March, the Charles City Community School District Board of Education changed the location of the complex, which will now be placed at the 5-12 Charles City Middle School/High School campus. They also allocated 50 percent of the project cost in order to begin construction this summer.

Sullivan said the project is going on as planned. Work has started on the ground at the high school to get it prepped and ready, with the goal for construction to start in late summer. Plans are already being discussed for an opening night celebration, to take place at the start of the 2020 season.

The project got another boost recently, when Musco Sports Lighting in Oskaloosa announced to the school district that it had decided to donate state-of-the-art LED sports lighting for the complex, a donation worth more than $400,000.