Restoring hope

Every athlete knows players working together are the key to winning the game. But for the Trussville Daybreak Rotary Club and Restoration Academy, working together is important both on and off the field.

On Jan. 8, a group of roughly 100 people came together for a Serve Day, where they began renovations on the Fairfield City baseball field on behalf of Restoration Academy. The school, a private Christian institution, contains a student body largely made up of at-risk kids from the community. Despite the statistics often assigned to these kids, the school is in its 11th year of having 100 percent of its graduating seniors accepted into college, according to Ty Williams, director of development and community affairs. 

In an effort to expose students to a wide variety of experiences, the school started a baseball program three years ago for students in grades 7 through 12. But training boys who have never played the game to compete with other teams is no easy task.

“Baseball has traditionally always been a father-son sport, and so having that issue of fatherlessness in our communities has really been rough,” Williams said. “And so, being able to have volunteers come alongside us and help in this way is really huge.”

The Serve Day was arranged after Mike Ennis, Rotary Club member and executive pastor at Faith Community Fellowship in Trussville, saw the condition of the field and brought the need to the Trussville Rotary Club.

That was when the club’s president — and owner of Trimm Design Build — stepped in.

“There was glass in the field; it was holding a lot of water … grass was encroaching into the playing area,” Tommy Trimm said. “We came out there and reestablished the lines of the field, and then we graded the field down and brought in new material so we can level out the field.”

In addition to those from the Rotary Club and Trimm Design, volunteers from the Mountain Brook High School baseball team and Mountain Brook Baptist Church joined Restoration’s own team members and coaches in the efforts.

“So it was just a beautiful picture of having everybody coming together to work,” Williams said. 

Seniors Jacob Okorley and Cameron Cole have been part of Restoration’s baseball program from the beginning, and they said they are excited to play at least one game on the new field.

“It will really mean something to me to be able to finish out my senior year on that field,” Okorley said.

“When you work with something and work at something, it’s better to partake in something that you worked for,” Cole said. “And we worked for that field and worked on it, so it’ll be great to play on it.”

In addition to the restoration, the Rotary Club also is working to raise about $250 for each of the 18 athletes in order to provide bats, gloves and shoes. The club is more than two-thirds of the way to meeting the goal, according to Trimm.

Williams said the equipment will be a blessing to the team, which has shown significant improvement since its first season.

“What’s been so eye-opening and enjoyable about it is their hearts’ in it,” Coach Holt Davis said. “They know they don’t know a whole lot about the game, but their eagerness to learn is incredible.”

Davis and the rest of the coaching team said they hope to create an atmosphere of family for the boys, rather than just that of a team.

“I think for these kids, we’re trying to create this safe haven, so to speak,” he said. “And a lot of time, sports can just be that avenue where they can come out, compete and just be kids for a while.”

For Ennis, the partnership is all about people coming together to continue good work.

“You know, these are exceptional young men that are involved in this baseball program, and so I think our goal was not so much a hand-out as a hand-up,” he said. “We’re kind of just giving them an opportunity, a chance to have a successful program.”

In the end, it’s that act of coming together that Ennis believes is key.

“We feel like we can do more together than we can do separate, so as we come together with Rotary and come together with other businesses, there’s a lot more that we can do when we put all of our resources and our assets together, and I think that was really the power of that day,” he said. 

For the students, being part of a team is an invaluable experience not just on the field, but in every aspect of life.

“It’s more than just baseball,” Cole said. “It’s us coming together as a family and growing together in Christ.”