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In Ventura County, the Santa Paula Little League is wrapping up one other residence run of a season.
“We schedule our common video games from March to mid-Might, with the playoffs after that,” says Mark Chisholm, a industrial pilot whose personal son performs within the league.
Nonetheless within the operating for the pennant are the Santa Paula Rockies. FGS sponsored the workforce this 12 months, persevering with a beloved custom of supporting groups in agricultural communities. It’s the corporate’s personal means of giving again. Chisholm, who helped safe the sponsorship, has an identical want to assist. At any time when he’s not within the cockpit, there’s a very good likelihood you’ll discover him on the ballpark, the place he’s been spending a number of months supporting Santa Paula Little League as a board member.
“I grew up right here,” he says. “My uncle performed the primary 12 months of Santa Paula Little League in 1956, on the identical discipline we nonetheless use right now. Again in my day, you wouldn’t have a workforce known as ‘The Rockies’ — as an alternative, groups can be named after their sponsors. You’d go to a recreation, and it could be ‘Harry’s Automobile Care’ taking part in towards ‘The Knights of Columbus.’ It actually concerned the neighborhood, and in an effort to get a few of that again, I started hitting up extra native companies for workforce sponsorships. We nonetheless have the Rockies, however this 12 months, it’s the Fruit Growers Provide Rockies.”
On the Rockies’ video games this season, attendees may look towards the outfield and see an FGS banner hanging on the outfield fence. It’s not nearly promoting and title recognition, although. Sponsoring a workforce in a small city like Santa Paula could make an enormous distinction for the gamers. “It helps hold prices down and enhance the fields,” Chisholm explains. “We’re a non-profit group, so each bit of cash we increase goes proper again into the league itself. We’ll use that cash for uniforms, the snack bar, and tools like baseballs and catchers’ gear. The children nonetheless pay a registration payment, however with these sponsorships, we attempt to hold that low.”
$20,000 was raised from all sponsorships this 12 months. Lots of these sponsors, together with a soil-sampling firm and an avocado farm, additionally work in agriculture. Chisholm says that cash helps fund an inspirational expertise for the younger ballplayers.
“Staff sports activities can educate so many life classes,” he notes. “Perhaps these youngsters received’t play within the main leagues, however they’ll nonetheless learn to win, how you can lose, how you can undergo adversity, how you can get harm and get again up.”
Comparable classes are being taught in Tulare County, the place FGS can be sponsoring the Woodlake Tigers. The highschool baseball workforce not too long ago climbed to No 1 within the East Sequoia League, with the championship a number of weeks away.
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