Each year, the Vancouver Canadians Baseball Foundation in cooperation with The Cape Group will award two (2) baseball organizations within the Greater Vancouver District with a grant of $50,000 to refurbish the facility that they utilize within their community for amateur baseball.
Applicants must meet a number of criteria in order to be eligible for consideration. Please read the guidelines below to ensure your project meets the necessary criteria:
a) Self-development of youth increasing the access to the sport of baseball
b) Developing life skills of all those who have access to the facility
c) Facility upgrades to allow for inclusion of all youth to utilize the space regardless of ability
The Change Up Project proposals may include, but are not limited to:
a) The building of new infrastruture benefitting the league and local community
b) Improving existing spaces to increase programming capacity, overall usage, safety, accessibility and inclusiveness for all participants.
The Change Up Project Strike Zone:
Our goal is to provide assistance to local youth organizations that aspire to provide players of all abilities with an environment that combines inclusiveness with fair play. Whether your organization is looking to improve its playing surface or perhaps refurbish a concession or worn down dugouts and/or bleachers, The Change Up Project was created to help local organizations positively impact their local community by creating a safe place for their youth to further develop themselves and baseball skills.
Our goal is to provide assistance to local youth baseball organizations that aspire to provide players of all abilities with an environment that combines inclusiveness with fair play. Whether your organization is looking to improve its playing surface or perhaps refurbish a snack bar or worn down dugouts and/or stands - The Change-Up Project was created to help local organizations receive the opportunity to better themselves.
"When we look at a submission from an organization we are looking for goals that directly benefit the youth from within its membership. Whether its creating a better ballpark environment through field repairations and improvements - or building something new for children of all abilities to access their ballpark - we are looking for constructed ideas that show a direct benefit to children from across the GVRD (Greater Vancouver Regional District)," states Vancouver Canadians President Andy Dunn.
The Change-Up Project was created to help provide significant financial support to local organizations that are committed to bettering their community through improved baseball-related facilities and opportunities.
All submissions on behalf of local baseball organizations must come from an executive within its board and must have the approval of both their active sitting board members and its local governing body.
Once the application is received the process will then go through the following procedures:
a) The Change-Up Project has appointed a Board of Directors that will ensure that each application meets the mandatory requirements to continue in the assessment process.
b) Once the application has been approved for further vetting, all applications will be reviewed with the full intention of ensuring all funding will be both utilized and approved by local city council and/or governing body responsible for the requested park up for funding.
c) Should an application reach this stage, a formal interview will be requested to review final budgetting and approved permissions from local government and/or Parks and Recreation Board.
d) Awards will be announced at the Annual Vancouver Canadians Hot Stove Luncheon slated for the end of January 2020.
Richmond City Baseball Association
Following receiving the Change-Up Project $50,000 grant, the City of Richmond installed full natural turf infields at Palmer Secondary School to the three main diamonds. These were previously used for fastball and the turf infields have made them more playable in rain and given true bounces for safer plays.
In order to have the greatest impact on all age groups that play with RCBA, portable mounds were also purchased allowing for the easy field conversions from U11 to U13 distances and are very consistent and require no maintenance compared to clay mounds.
Dunbar Little League
The summer of 2020 was supposed to look a lot different for Dunbar Little League as they were supposed to host the British Columbia Little League Provincials. At Memorial Park located in Dunbar, there was several upgrades that were needed to accommodate all the ages that play within League.
With the Change-Up Project grant, the playing surface on both the majors and minors fields will be improved to provide a safe environment for all athletes. In order to allow for a long training season for the teams, the batting cages located near the Major Field will also be seeing some upgrades with new lighting, wind screens and proper storage for field equipment to keep up the facility.