The Scotts Company and Major League Baseball have awarded the Bay Oaks Little League Field on Fort Myers Beach a $50,000 grant to refurbish the field.
The fields at Bay Oaks were heavily damaged by Ian, then used as a dumping ground for debris in the months after the storm.
Jeff Hauge, Interim Cultural, Parks and Recreation Director at the Town, who wrote the grant application for the town said, “Getting this ball field up and running will really build up morale within our community. We are excited to receive this grant and continue to move forward in restoring Fort Myers Beach back to normalcy after the devastation of the hurricane.”
In its eighth year, the Scotts Field Refurbishment Program received over 600 grant applications from organizations in 47 states. The three winning organizations were then chosen by a special blue-ribbon panel, which included leadership from Scotts and MLB, World Series Champion and MLB Network analyst Cliff Floyd and Olympic Gold Medalist Jennie Finch.
The other two winning organizations were the Oak Hill Recreation League (Oak Hill, Ohio), and the Wellpinit Boys & Girls Club (Wellpinit, Washington).
Once this year’s projects are completed, the Scotts Field Refurbishment Program will have renovated 38 fields in 20 states, investing more than $2 million into the renovation of community fields. This program is part of Scotts’ Gro More Good initiative to improve children’s health and well-being through increased connection to greenspaces.