by Frank Lee
operations@thenewsleaders.com
Parents, students and coaches spent the afternoon of April 19 sprucing up the baseball field and the softball field at Kennedy Community School in St. Joseph in order to stay competitive.
Principal Laurie Putnam and Mayor Rick Schultz agreed earlier this spring to revitalize the fields. The school district would pay for the materials and the city would maintain the fields in the summer.
“In this community, the Summer Rec league has gotten banned out of the Holdingford league because our fields are in such poor shape,” Putnam said.
“We don’t want our kids in this community having to go to Waite Park,” she added. “Certainly they have a great program, and parents can make their own choices, but we want this to be a viable option.”
The St. Joseph Summer Rec is a parent or volunteer organization for school-aged children with practices for T-ball, pitchball, midgets, peewee, softball and junior varsity baseball.
“There were holes where the pitcher’s mound should be,” Putnam said of the fields at Kennedy Community School. “It’s actually sunk in, so it really was in rough shape.”
About 30 people took time to dig and rake the fields, which included spreading $1,500 worth of materials from three dump trucks to soften up the fields and fill up any holes in the ground.
“We are getting a locker we’re going to secure through the fence out there, so anytime anybody uses the fields, whether it’s our teams or community rec teams, they can do a quick maintenance afterward,” Putnam said of future upkeep.
Students and coaches help shovel and sweep the baseball and the softball fields near Kennedy Community School in St. Joseph as part of a revitalization project in a bid that would allow the St. Joseph summer recreation program to become part of the Holdingford league.
