Thanks to hard work and generous donations, playing baseball is becoming a reality for more kids in Kingston.
On July 11, Kingston Thunder Baseball announced the opening of the “Field of Dreams,” a new baseball field at Woodbine Park, home to the Thunder organization. The completion of the new diamond marks the end of a two-year project which was initially started in 2024 and makes it the fifth field at Woodbine.
Several people from the Challenger program and Jays Care Foundation were there to celebrate the opening of the Field of Dreams. Bryan Patterson, mayor of Kingston, was also present to throw out the ceremonial first pitch.
The Field of Dreams was primarily constructed with the goal of giving kids who are part of the Challenger Baseball program a field to themselves. The Challenger Baseball program was designed by the Jays Care Foundation to help youth with physical and cognitive disabilities to play baseball.
While the program teaches the sport to them in an adaptive way, it also aims to teach the kids important life skills inherent to baseball such as teamwork, resiliency, and inclusion. Jays Care partners with baseball organizations around Canada to help deliver the program, including with Kingston Thunder in 2022.
Carol Steele, one of Kingston Thunder’s executive directors, is happy at the fact that the field will give the Challenger program their own space and allow Thunder to grow as a result.
“[The field] provides them with a diamond of their own and assists the whole Thunder association by allowing it to register more players at other levels,” Steele said in a statement to The Journal.
According to Steele, the field cost about $100,000 to construct, with the Jays Care Foundation donating $65,000 to help cover it. The rest of the money came through private donations. Initially, the field was only supposed to take a few weeks to build, but ended up taking several months due to delays in funding.
Randy Casford, director of the Challenger program at Thunder and part of the organization for 18 years, said he’s “very thankful” for being able to work with disabled kids in an interview with The Journal.
“I get more out of coaching them than I have my entire life with baseball because it’s so rewarding and the kids are so thankful. They’re so amazing and sometimes you leave pretty emotional,” Casford said.
When the field isn’t in use by the Challenger program, it will be used by the Timbits Division, a program designed for younger kids aged 4-5 years old. As a byproduct, more field time will be freed up on the other diamonds for Thunder’s rep and select teams.
“It makes a big difference,” Casford said. “We want the kids to have the most at-bats they can have, the most fielding experience possible, where we couldn’t do that before. So, this will be a great opportunity for everybody.”
With the field construction complete, kids in the Challenger program will now play ball on a diamond they can call their own.
Tags
Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Acts, baseball, community
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