BIA funding helps sports leagues
[attach]6285[/attach]With the summer season rolling, East York Baseball has a timely donation from the Danforth Village BIA to thank for helping to keep the league running.
“We’re using [the donation] for this season to help keep our fees low. It goes into things that help us operate the league,” including clothing, trophies, and paying for umpires, said Andrew Pace, who runs the East York Baseball Association.
As announced last fall, the East York Baseball Association, East York Soccer Association and Ted Reeve Skating Arena received Community Sponsorship Program funding of $5,000 each to assist in paying for ice costs, field costs and organizational operating expenses.
Speaking on behalf of the BIA, Ellen Gardner said the partnership with sports began with board member Harold Robbins.
Robbins advocated supporting youth sports as a tremendous way of creating sports opportunities for local young people, “some of whom do not have the means or resources to participate in organized sport,” Gardner said.
“Harold [Robbins] and [former chair] Steve [Minos] did a fair amount of research on which sports organizations to support and decided to extend partnership support to three organizations that had a strong presence in the Danforth Village neighbourhood,” Gardner said. “By providing financial support, the BIA was not just contributing to families and youth, but showing the sports organizations that the businesses do care about the community and want to be active contributors.”
The baseball association appreciates the BIA’s support.
“We’re very much aligned with the [BIA] in terms of wanting to build a thriving community where people want to live and work and play,” Pace said.