Alliance Bank in Sulphur Springs

Bright Star Baseball

With the publication of Mary Bonham’s new cookbook, Down-Home Cookin’, proceeds from the cookbook’s sales will be going toward a non-profit organization known as Bright Star Baseball. Bright Star Baseball is an organization whose goal is to build a special baseball field here in Sulphur Springs for special needs children.

“The mission of Bright Star is to provide special needs children the opportunity to play baseball while building self-esteem and peer relationships,” Bright Star Board member Veronica Yost said. “Oringinally, we had our first season in 2013, which is when we started Bright Star Baseball. ”

Bright Star has had three successful seasons so far since being established. According to Board member Carmen Crouse, they play at Buford Park, starting on Monday nights at six o’clock in the afternoon with meals provided afterwards by the local Sulphur Springs banks. Bright Star plans to build a field especially for special needs children that participate in Bright Star Baseball.

“It would be a rubberized baseball field, an all-weather field, that allows kids that are in wheelchairs and walkers that are not as mobile as the typical child,” Yost said. “The surface is similar to that of a track surface. We’ve had several games that we’ve had to cancel due to the rain, where with this specialized field in that scenario we would be able to play because of the surface that we are using.”

Bright Star still needs to raise the proper amount of funding in order to begin construction for the special field.They have been raising the money with the help of Xander Brown, a gifted baseball player born in Sulphur Springs who’s been selected to take part in a power showcase in which he will represent Bright Star Baseball.

“He reached out to us because of the fact that he fell in love with the game of baseball here in Sulphur Springs and in the fields that we currently play on today,” Yost said. “He wanted to give back to the community and use this field as a fundraising project. This field has always been a long term goal of ours and  we talked about it, but never really had started fundraising for it. So he really pushed us and made us realize that this is possible and we can do this.”

Bright Star will be sending a donation letter out to all local businesses explaining their goal and what their mission is. Once the proper funding has been accomplished, they plan to host a ground-breaking party at the construction site.

 

Author: Staff Reporter

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