DATE: Monday, April 28, 1997                TAG: 9704280034

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MEREDITH COHN, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE                        LENGTH:   69 lines

RESIDENTS RAISE FUNDS FOR LIGHTS, GIVING KIDS EXTRA TIME TO PLAY BALL

So many kids want to play ball in Chesapeake that there are not enough daylight hours for all the games. And the next best thing to more sun is more lights, but the city doesn't have the funds to pay for them.

Increasingly, parents, coaches and kids have stepped up to the plate, raising money to pay for equipment that adds a few extra hours of their favorite pastime.

The Greenbrier Athletic Association recently paid for $188,000 worth of lighting upgrades, fencing and scoreboards for three B.M. Williams Primary School baseball fields.

About 500 youths in the group, ages 5 to 18, play on the fields, dedicated April 12 in the name of the group's president and longtime supporter, Paul Vestal.

``This is what we need to do,'' said Claire R. Askew, director of the city's Parks, Recreation and Building Maintenance Department, referring to volunteer efforts to improve recreation in tight budget times.

Askew said other groups have raised money for improvements to public property, but the Greenbrier Athletic Association's contribution was unusually large. ``They did something; they didn't ask the city for help,'' she said. ``It's so impressive.''

Lighting, which allows groups to play at least an extra game each evening, is a problem in the city. Of the 75 public athletic fields - most on school property - 31 are not lighted. Others need improvements.

``We knew public money wasn't there,'' said Jack Kasiski, who has served as a vice president, players' agent or coach for most years since 1989. ``We already lost a field to the school's expansion, and our philosophy was let's work with the city and make improvements so we become jointly committed to keeping three fields solvent.''

Registration fees, business sponsors and fund-raisers for the past seven years - including sales of candy, entertainment books and a truck raffle - supported daily operations, but dollars raised from bingo during the same time were all saved for the lighting upgrades and other major improvements.

Bingo was once a popular means of raising money for such groups, but the Greenbrier club no longer plans to sponsor it because of the number of volunteers and level of financial scrutiny associated with the game and recent bad publicity. Although Kasiski said his group had no specific problems, authorities are investigating the Greenbrier association's bingo organizer, George West, for allegedly misspending another group's funds. But, Kasiski adds, the $25,000 a year or more pulled in by bingo did help the organization.

``We were scheduling (baseball) games on top of each other,'' Kasiski said. ``The lights wouldn't come on for the games when they were supposed to and wouldn't shut off after the games. That was a problem that hurt the kids and annoyed the neighbors. The city was good at coming to fix problems with the lights, but we needed reliable equipment.''

The group will rely on other fund-raisers and new corporate sponsors for a proposed field house and restrooms. Local businesses helped the latest effort by offering discounts for their work including Branham Electric Corp. for the lights; Chesapeake Fence and Awning Co. for the fences; Nevco for the scoreboards; and John Maddux of Cederquist, Rodriguez, Ripley and Maddux for architectural work.

Another Chesapeake athletic group chose to spend its money to buy its own fields. Blake Rawls, president of Great Bridge Baseball Inc., said the goal was to provide the opportunity to play baseball to any youth who wanted to play. Now in its third year, the complex is used by 1,400 players.

Great Bridge Baseball spent $758,000 on the complex but still faces bills for maintenance and lighting. The city considered paying for lights at the privately owned complex, but the City Council decided to bargain for public access to the facility. Negotiations are ongoing.

``We did what we could to help ease the burden on the city to pay for recreation for our kids,'' Rawls said. ``We'll keep on doing what we can. The bottom line, I think we all agree, is that the kids are playing.''

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