Trenton Thunder, Isles and Rue Insurance renovate city’s MLK Park
TRENTON » A team effort was utilized to spruce up a city baseball field.
The Trenton Thunder, Isles, Rue Insurance and the Mercer County Improvement Authority partnered to repaint, clean and renovate the baseball fields at Martin Luther King Jr. Park on April 27.
The initiative was spearheaded by the Thunder’s F.I.E.L.D. program, which stands for Focused Initiative for Enhanced Learning and Development.
“This is the third season that the Thunder have done it,” Thunder spokesman Vince Marcucci said this past weekend. “This is the second season that Isles provided volunteers — boots on the ground — that helped with the renovation itself. We cleaned up the entire park, repainted a lot of structures, as well as the dugouts, and then we renovated both of the baseball fields in the park, the t-ball field and the majors field.”
Marcucci said 30 volunteers each from both Isles and Rue Insurance helped with the repairs for four hours, in addition to 15 staffers from the Thunder.
Stacy Heading, an evening program coordinator with Isles Youth Institute, said it was more than “picking up trash” for the kids who participated.
“We decided to use our young people who are learning the construction trade of the school to give back to the community doing a service project like this,” Heading said. “It’s really about offering our young kids these extraordinary opportunities and to really be able to do a project like this to have them hands-on in their city and their community because a lot of them grew up or had relatives that play on that baseball field so it means a lot to them to be able to give back and make their community better.”
The prior two years, the Thunder — Double-A affiliate of the New York Yankees — have refurbished West End Little League in Chambersburg.
“It’s been a commitment to the city when we took over in partnership with Mayor Eric Jackson,” Marcucci said. “Once all the city fields are done, we’ll figure out where we go from there.”
The Thunder takes the financial burden of the repairs, but this year, the team received contributions from the Mercer County Improvement Authority and Rue Insurance.
“I’m excited to participate in the field renovation event because every little bit of help counts,” Rue Insurance human resources manager Heather Mela said in a statement. “Not only does this event bring us together as a company, it improves the physical condition of the community, and most importantly we get to help give the children of Trenton a beautiful and safe field to play on. That is a great feeling! My hope is that when people see others coming together for the greater good of the community, it will create a chain reaction and motivate them to do the same.”
On June 9, the Thunder honored all of the volunteers before its home game. It also produced a video of the cleanup.
“Everyone had a good time,” Heading said. “Some of the kids were able to invite their parents out who have never been to a baseball game before.”
The Thunder look to tackle all the city ballparks as part of its F.I.E.L.D. program. Marcucci said the team has not decided yet which park would be the recipient of a renovation next year.