Youth baseball players in the Cedar Rapids area have a new place to call home

The Cedar Rapids Parks and Recreation Department held a ribbon cutting ceremony on July 15 to celebrate the completion of the Jones Park baseball project.

The project broke ground in August 2009 with plans to provide a new youth baseball diamond, reconfiguring an existing diamond, and improving another existing ball diamond.

Thanks to the generous support of the Baseball Tomorrow Fund, Aegon Transamerica Foundation, the City of Cedar Rapids, the Kernels Foundation, the Greater Cedar Rapids Community Foundation Flood Fund, the Hall Perrine Foundation, Minor League Baseball charities, Perfect Game USA, King's Materials Inc., Bill Quinby, and Rockwell Collins, this plan was able to become a reality.

The entire cost of the project was $170,000, with all but $25,000 of the funds coming from grants and donations.

Cedar Rapids mayor Ron Corbett gave the opening remarks at the event, while Julie Sina - Director of the Cedar Rapids Parks and Recreation Department, and Tom Barbee - the President of the Kernels Foundation - also addressed the crowd. Former Kernels General Manager Jack Roeder threw the honorary first pitch to Cedar Rapids baseball Hall of Famer Al Smith.

Jones Park is the home field for the League of Dreams - a non-competitive, instructional baseball league for Cedar Rapids youths supported by the Kernels Foundation, Minor League Baseball, Rawlings, Perfect Game USA, and the Cedar Rapids Parks & Recreation Department.

The purpose of the league is to provide a positive recreational experience and a perhaps a lasting memory involving the game of baseball.