By Susan Bromley

Staff Writer

Brandon Twp.-Christmas came a few days early at the township offices.

On Tuesday, Recreation Director Fred Waybrant learned the township was awarded a $150,000 grant from the Department of Natural Resources Land and Water Trust Fund, prompting him to yell, “Merry Christmas!”

“It’s awesome,” said Waybrant. “It’s always been my goal to finalize the park before I retire and it’s finally coming together. I’m like, where’s my shovel? I’m ready to go!”

The grant, which requires a $150,000 match from the township, will be used for four ball fields at the Brandon Township Community Park, 1414 N. Hadley Road. The park was one of 17 community and DNR parks, trails and sports facilities across the state that were recommended to share $2,289,600 in Land and Water Conservation Fund grants.

“The Land and Water Conservation Fund is a collaborative effort between federal, state and local government partners to provide high-quality recreation opportunities for Michigan residents and visitors,” said Steve DeBrabander, DNR grants manager. “It’s an important investment in the quality of life and economic well-being in the communities.”

Successful applicants clearly demonstrated projects designed to increase public access to quality outdoor recreation opportunities. There were 30 state applicants for the grant this year. The township applied unsuccessfully last year for the same grant, which uses a point system to rank applicants. In March of this year, when deciding to apply for the grant again, the board approved not only the required $150,000 match, but an additional commitment of $109,500 to cover projects at the park exceeding $300,000. With approval of the grant, the board will have $409,500 committed to complete phase two of the community park, which will include two Little League baseball fields, one varsity baseball field, one varsity softball field, accessible parking, linking pathways from the parking lot to ball fields, a crosswalk that links the ballfields to multi-purpose fields in phase one, and miscellaneous items including signs, benches, and trash cans.

The baseball fields have been a long time coming. Township officials purchased 47 acres of land for the park at Hadley and Oakwood roads in 2004 at a cost of $808,000, and the park officially opened in 2008 with multi-purpose fields which are most commonly used for soccer, which was part of phase one. The park features a tree library, too, and a playground and sledding hill lift station were also added with grant funds.

Still planned are concession stands, restrooms, basketball courts and sand volleyball, but the baseball/softball fields to be established with the recently approved grant completes a major part of the park puzzle. Waybrant notes that 10-, 11-, and 12-year-olds in this community have been playing on under-sized fields for many years on fields at Sherman Village Park, which will still be utilized for T-ball and machine pitch, but the new fields will be a benefit to older players, not only for league play, but also for practices, travel teams and tournaments.

“These will be state of the art fields, with a grass infield now, and state of the art backdrops,” said Waybrant, who adds that lighting isn’t budgeted for with this grant money, but he is hopeful that is something that may be attained in the future.

“We’re all excited,” said Supervisor Kathy Thurman of the grant award. “I think we all felt like we were getting a Christmas present. It’s been a vision of the township to build baseball fields, so it will be nice to actually be able to do it.”

Thurman and Waybrant hope to have work begin in 2017, with play to commence on the new fields in 2018.