McFarland: Jays Care grant helping to rebuild historic Big Foot Diamond in Saskatchewan
A Jays Care “Field of Dreams” grant is being used to help with the rebuild of Big Foot Diamond in Holdfast, Sask. Photo: Lora Bast
*This article was originally published on Saskatchewan Dugout Stories on June 19, 2024. You can read it here.
June 22, 2024
By Joe McFarland
Saskatchewan Dugout Stories
The legend of Big Foot lives on in Holdfast.
However, the small farming community north of Moose Jaw isn’t talking about the notoriously elusive creature.
They are talking about Big Foot Diamond, which has a long and winding journey on the village’s map.
After being more of a farmer’s field than a ball diamond for years, the sport’s popularity inspired the community to bring it back to life.
A lot of work went into the project over the last couple of years to make it useful again, but organizers believed they needed one more boost to take the facelift to another level.
They applied for several grants and, on April 30, Holdfast was named among the 14 projects across Canada to receive funding from the Jays Care “Field of Dreams” program.
“It’s extremely nice when a community can receive funding from outside,” Holdfast Baseball chairperson/organizer Lora Bast told Saskatchewan Dugout Stories. “We were all definitely excited to see our small town name with all those big city names during the announcement.”
While it’s a thrilling time for Bast and everyone in the Holdfast area, the additional funding means several things on their bucket list are about to become reality.
IF YOU REBUILD IT…
Holdfast has always had a few ball diamonds on their sportsgrounds.
In particular, two fields have withstood the test of time – a large men’s diamond and a second which was utilized by ladies fastpitch, however now it is used more for minor baseball and slo-pitch.
A third diamond sat behind the shop of a local company, Big Foot Construction, leading to the name “Big Foot Diamond.”
Featuring only a backstop and near a farmer’s field, Bast says it was regularly ploughed through for weed control and not really useful for a shrinking baseball community.
But she says over the last six years or so, interest in the game has picked up again, so she approached the village with a plan to house the growing program.
“The plan was to make the diamond a permanent structure this time including a chain link fence around the perimeter,” Bast said. “The village marked out the property line and we started our fundraising efforts.”
Little by little, an army of volunteers started re-creating the old baseball field, complete with a shale infield and established dugouts.
SHOW ME THE MONEY
Once Bast received approval from the village, she started kicking tires for potential fundraising options.
She says someone sent her a link to the Field of Dreams grant in 2022 and she applied.
“We had our project in mind but didn’t have a single thing started,” Bast recalled. “I was denied the first time I applied as they said they would like to help finish projects rather than kickstarting them.”
Back to the drawing board, she spent the better part of the next year looking at other grants while holding a variety of events including suppers, silent auctions and 50/50 campaigns, which all proved to be very successful.
A panoramic view of Big Foot Field in development. Photo: Lora Bast
They then received some larger donations and organizations started stepping up to get things to a point where they were finally able to get teams on the field last summer.
However, they still had a few “cosmetic” changes needing to be made, and in the fall of 2023, Bast applied again for Jays Care funding.
“The process of applying for this grant is detailed,” she said.
“You can’t just say you want ‘X’ amount of money and hope you get it – there are guidelines and parameters that need to be followed.”
Bast says they had a much smaller list of things needing to get done, including putting tin on the dugouts and a safety railing cap on the fence.
COMMUNITY COMES TOGETHER
With spring seeding well underway and many community members in tractors, Bast says they didn’t have a “watch party” like other associations had.
Instead, she asked families to film their kids’ reaction to the announcement, which was set for April 30 during the Sportsnet broadcast of the Blue Jays game against Kansas City.
Volunteers work on fencing at the Big Foot Diamond. Photo: Lora Bast
The reaction was exactly as you would expect from any child who sees their hometown flashed on a television screen.
Bast says, more importantly, it was nice to be recognized for the hard work put in by everyone in the small community, which always came together.
“When the same individuals are being asked over and over again to donate to make things like this happen, it can become tiresome,” she said.
“Therefore, it’s a very exciting and happy feeling to receive this to help take some of that weight off of all the community members.”
With the baseball season underway, athletes are back on the field while also looking forward to seeing the finishing touches put on the old “new” field.
THE LEGACY OF BIG FOOT
With a growing baseball scene in Holdfast and several surrounding communities like Dilke, Craik and Imperial also seeing growth, Bast says the additional field opens a few more doors.
She says bigger events are already on her radar.
“I’ve applied to host provincials this season for our 11U hardball team,” Bast said. “The hope is to receive this and have all the finishing touches on the diamond completed for that in July – that’s the goal at the moment.”
Holdfast mayor Ian McLellan says he is amazed by what the community has been able to put together in such a short amount of time.
“We’ve got such a rebirth coming into town right now,” he told 650 CKOM. “A lot of kids are involved in baseball again, and I haven’t really seen it that way since I was young.”
As Bast looks out at the diamond, she’s reminded of how it wasn’t long ago that it was only a backstop and a cultivated field.
She remembers being a kid and playing at what was called “Big Foot Diamond” and she’s excited that the next generation will be able to do the same.
“One of our large donors in 2023 was a trust fund from the same family that ran Big Foot Construction,” Bast said. “So when this ‘rebuild’ of the diamond is complete, it will once again be called ‘Big Foot Diamond.’”