Thanks to the support of some generous sponsors, Altona Minor Softball is thrilled to cut the ribbon Tuesday evening (May 6th) for Altona’s newest softball diamond ~ West Park School Northwest.
The vision comes to fruition
Derek Sawatzky is the president of the Altona Angels Softball Association and commented on how they arrived at this Grand Opening of a brand new diamond, "Yeah, looking back, we began setting some vision in place in 2023. In the fall, just after the season, we noticed some things we would like to see addressed and we really began the planning interest last spring. So Spring of 2024, and that's when we got started with a bit of a 50-50 campaign, which was really successful last year as well as the canvassing out to businesses and naming it 'Dollars for Diamonds'".
- Enjoy some photos from the first official game on the new diamond in the gallery below!
The Grand Opening of a new diamond
Derek shared the details on tonight's (May 6th) diamond Grand Opening, ". So, we will have a legitimate ribbon cutting with a ribbon, which is kind of a cool thing. I don't know that I've ever been part of that. We've invited our sponsors to come out to participate in seeing, hey, this is how you supported us in making this vision into a reality. The mayor's coming out, we have some other folks as well. We'll do a few little speeches, 6:15 PM on Tuesday, and then we'll get started with the U13 game, which will include a game that my teams participating in. I'm looking forward to being part of it as well, Altona versus Altona."
Plans for more upgrades
Derek Sawatzky also talked about some future upgrades that they would like to accomplish, "Some of the things we wanna make sure we're working on. We know right now we don't have any bleachers on the diamonds at Parkside or West Park, so those are two things that we're pursuing. Currently we have all-clay infields at Miller and Parkside and we've upgraded this new diamond here as well. We want to trim out the other two diamonds that are at West Park with all-clay infields. That's our vision that we have. We're going to be adding some dugout roofs this year and looking to add that to all of those diamonds that we have our travel teams playing on. A little bit more minor upgrades, like some of the matting for the dugouts, we don't want them to turn into muddy, grassy areas, we want to make sure that the girls feel proud! Also something we haven't gotten to yet, but we would like to get to depending on where we land with our fundraising campaign, some portable fencing, so that when we're hosting tournaments, we can put in an outfield fence. Right now, we don't have that availability at Parkside or West Park."
Currently the Altona Angels Softball Association has raised $81,000 of their $200,000 goal that they've had this year up to this point and if you would like to support this program, check the link here! Dollars for Diamonds
You can also enjoy the entire conversation between Derek Sawatzky, President of the Altona Angels Softball Association and CFAM Morning Show co-host Zack Driedger below:
