#GoodNewsFriday: Room to Practice
For many years, the neighborhood behind St. John’s United Methodist Church has been charitably described as “needing improvement.” This was once a thriving business district, but that long ago gave way to a sense of gloomy abandonment. A couple of years ago, St. John’s acquired this half block and cleared it. The idea was to clean up the neighborhood and also get it ready for a potential future reuse that might develop.
That future is now the present. Stamford is lacking in park acreage per person and that includes a shortage of practice fields for our youth baseball, softball, and soccer teams. Too many teams are forced to practice in locations that are not ideal for various reasons. Washington Park‘s redevelopment is getting underway (stay tuned there!) and that eliminated a practice field, so the leaders of St. John’s have taken the initiative to help. Backstops will shortly be installed on either end of this property and this spring, it will become two brand-new youth athletic practice fields for community use. Our goal is for this to start the creation of a number of new practice fields across our community.
There are other exciting plans afoot in this area too. A neighborhood “needing improvement” may soon be a gem of Stamford’s ongoing revitalization!
“Good News Friday” is a weekly feature spotlighting positive news and activities in the #StamfordTexas community as a part of our quest to build a #BetterStamford.