As with many good stories, it all started with a little dream, to build a baseball field for a small town in Nicaragua.
In 1990 some people in this town took care of me while I was on a trip through their country. I was traveling and playing baseball in Nicaragua, but somehow found myself in this little town – sick. A couple days of TLC got me back on the road, but the people here made a lasting impression. Lasting enough to take me back 10 years later, to see how they had survived Hurricane Mitch.
The community was fine, but they lacked any playing fields for their favorite pastime – Baseball.
What started as a little dream, a small idea – turned into something much bigger. What started as a small baseball field, turned into a baseball stadium. Over the next 12 years, our “one man show” turned into Developing Communities Inc. – and together with the community we have changed the face and course of Empalme de Boaco and surrounding areas. We have hosted hundreds of volunteers to engage with and participate in the community, building the hardest component of all – Trust.
Together we have accomplished much:
a baseball stadium
a playground/park/basketball court
a school cafeteria
a new high school and computer lab
a community of 62 new homes
a new police station
remodeled a public health clinic
and created a thriving scholarship program for over one hundred high school and university graduates.
The Scholarship Program
Our scholarship program provides financial assistance and scholastic reinforcement classes to high achieving students to support them in high school, university, and trade schools. In return these students pay back over 5,000 hours of service to their community in the form of environmental clean-up, building projects and after school tutoring for younger at-risk kids.
The program also provides much needed training and counseling for the entire family as they navigate this crucial time in their child’s life.
We dig deeper into each situation and provide the assistance where it is needed to give our students the best chance of success. We have shown that family involvement and constant support are the key ingredients to our successful program.