Bigfork Baseball Club Launches Fundraising Campaign for ‘Field of Dreams’ Construction Project
Having lost the use of its ball field after 50 years, the Bigfork Youth Baseball Association is seeking dollar-for-dollar matching donations for construction of its new field through May
By Beacon Staff
When the Bigfork Youth Baseball Association (BYBA) lost the use of its baseball field last April, the club said goodbye to what had served as the home field for its Babe Ruth baseball program for the previous 50 years.
“For business reasons, the private property owners were no longer able to allow their property to be used for a baseball field,” Dan Purcell, a volunteer with BYBA, said of a field that was meant to be home to both the Bigfork Babe Ruth Baseball team and the newly formed Bigfork High School Baseball program.
With no other field within 20 miles, the Bigfork High School team practiced in the gymnasium and played their home games at ABS Park located in Evergreen for the remainder of the 2024 season.
“The Babe Ruth team practiced on pee wee league fields in Bigfork and played their home games in Whitefish and Columbia Falls,” Purcell said.
Without county, school district, state or federal land available for a baseball field in the Bigfork area, BYBA started a search for private land. This search concluded last fall when BYBA secured a long-term lease on 5 acres of private land just north of Bigfork, entering into a long-term lease with the Saint John Paul II Catholic Church on Coverdell Road.
Crews began leveling the land last October and are nearing completion on the perimeter fencing, backstop, dugouts, bullpens, irrigation, infield dirt, sod and electrical work.
“BYBA has accomplished a lot in a short time, and much remains,” Purcell said.
To help bring the project to completion, local businesses, individuals, family charitable trusts, and charitable foundations have donated money, labor and equipment for the project, he said, adding that “BYBA still faces substantial costs to complete this project.”
To that end, a northwest Montana family who wishes to remain anonymous has set up a dollar-for dollar matching donation drive through May 1 that’s capped at $25,000. That means if BYBA can drum up $25,000 in financial support before May 1, the local family will double the amount to $50,000.
“We will come sliding into home plate if we get to $50,000,” Purcell said.
Anyone who wishes to contribute to the project can make a tax-deductible donation of cash or stocks by sending checks to: Bigfork Youth Baseball Association, P.O. Box 1822, Bigfork, MT, 59911.
BYBA is a 501(c)(3) tax deductible organization.
The money will help the program furnish the field with warning track dirt, a scoreboard and foul poles, a pitcher’s mound, batter’s boxes and a batting cage, as well as seed the exterior perimeter and finish the parking area, Purcell said. Additional material needs include a mower, rollers, numerous hand tools required for field prep and maintenance, storage, restrooms and concessions.
Routine annual operating expenses will include fertilizer, weed spray, baseline chalk, gasoline, insurance, electricity, and annual lease payments.
Purcell said he hopes both baseball teams will be practicing and playing games on the new field sometime in April 2025.
For more information, contact [email protected].