West Nipissing eyes a Field of Dreams

West Nipissing is making a pitch for a Field of Dreams.

The Toronto Blue Jay’s Jays Care Foundation has been running the Field of Dreams program for the past 10 years. The TD Bank sponsors the program, and over those 10 years, nearly $15 million has been invested into 163 Field of Dream diamonds across Canada.

The money goes to designing, refurbishing, and building baseball diamonds within communities. The funding amount depends on the project, but last year, around $1.5 million was doled out to 14 communities.

Seven of those were in Ontario, and one grant was given to the North, as Blind River received funding.

Any charitable organization, non-profit baseball association, First Nation, or municipality is eligible to apply for a Field of Dreams grant, from September to October 31. From those applicants, a preliminary review will occur, and select applicants will be invited to submit a full proposal by January 31, 2025. If accepted, a notice of funding approval will be announced in late March, with a public announcement set for early April.

The grant can be used for covered dugouts, accessibility improvements and upgrades, supplies and labour required to build or refurbish spaces, equipment, and bleachers with four to five rows of seats.

West Nipissing has a handful of baseball diamonds. There are two fields at the Waterfront Drive Baseball Diamond in Cache Bay, one at Leblanc Road – which also has a scoreboard – and there’s another at Richelieu on Park and Third Streets. There’s one more at Goulard Park at 219 O’Hara Street as well.

Councillor Kris Rivard, who sits on the Community Services Committee, brought the idea of applying for the grant to council, and councillors thought that was a fine idea. As for which field or fields can be improved, council will find out more as it moves forward with the process.

“We do have a need to fix our baseball diamonds,” Rivard said, “they’ve fallen into pretty rough shape. This would be a good win for the municipality.”

David Briggs is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter who works out of BayToday, a publication of Village Media. The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.