Macoun is going to see some upgrades to its baseball fields following a donation from a nearby business. Richardson Pioneer donated $25,000 towards the upgrades, with Macoun Minor Baseball hoping to put in a fence on one of their two diamonds.
President Josh Gustafson explains the process they went through to get the donation.
"We heard about a grand opportunity through Richardson Pioneer, and obviously, being a farm community, we have lots of members in the community that deal with Richardson, and so we know that they're very generous, especially on community initiatives. So we put in an application to get some funding for our facilities that we're building in Macoun."
"Over the last couple years, we've been building a minor baseball program and slowly has been growing bigger and bigger every year. We've been increasing our numbers. I think this past year we had just about 70 kids from Macoun Minor Baseball, which is pretty kind of unheard of for a small town to have that big of a baseball program."
Gustafson says getting the donation was huge for the organization and will help them greatly.
"I was a little bit kind of shocked when I got the call. I kind of had to take a second to realize what they were saying. Everyone on the board just couldn't believe it. Obviously, it's a huge initiative, and already we've been seeing support from other donations coming in, just helping support the Richardson one to get things rolling in Macoun and upgrade the facilities, get multiple diamonds and dugouts ready."
Gustafson says they've even received comments from families in the community who don't have kids who play baseball, but are still excited to be able to watch sports in their community.
Even after the fence is set up, Gustafson says there's more to do to set up the diamonds for success.
"We're getting dugouts built, we're getting the fence up, this past year we bought some shale and put some shale in around home plate, and we're expecting to put some shale in around the bases and around home plate on the second diamond. Really just kind of getting things in place to have an awesome little ball diamond where we can have teams come and play and continue to grow our minor ball program in Macoun."
Gustafson says he hopes that a combination of donations and community enthusiasm will make sure the next baseball season goes well in Midale.