Update on Yoakum Little League Park improvements

Yoakum has been working hard at reinvigorating the Little League Park over the years.

Raymond Rosas has been President of the Little League Park for the past four years and, already, he said there’s been some major changes.

“We’ve done quite a bit of stuff. First off, we redid all of the backstop and dugouts at what they consider the girl’s high school major field,” Rosas said. “We have worked hard to make improvements to the backstop walls. We’ve also had put in whole new nettings, new poles, and built two new storage sheds connecting to the two brand new dugouts. We’ve also redid dugouts at both our tee-ball field and our minor field. Just this last year, we also constructed a new restroom at the girl’s high school field.”

Rosas expects the new restrooms to be completed in January. The most recent grant was from the Lower Colorado River Authority and they donated nearly $27,000.

“I was at some of the meetings they had with these new grants,” Rosas said. “There were a lot of people who said our Little League Park needed some renovations. The grant from LCRA was for new lights at the major boys field.”

One of the bond projects from Yoakum ISD is going toward a new little league field for the girls’ softball team.

“They are supposed to be starting that project after the 2023 season is over for softball, so this could be the last year the high school girls will be playing there,” Rosas said. “This could affect how many people currently use the Little League Park because we would lose some high school students. Currently, there are up around 300 kids who use the park, and during the off-season there are probably around 200 kids who use it.”

There are still some changes Rosas would like to see happen at the Little League Park.

“I would like to see new covers over our benches. We would love to do that and a new concession stand at our major boys field,” Rosas said. “We’d also like to upgrade our minor girls field by putting in new dugouts and replacing with new fences because our field in is bad shape.”

There have been new grants to help spruce the park area. On the July 11 City Council agenda, an authorization of the submission of grant application was approved for funding on a proposed Non-Urban Outdoor Recreation Plan. The outdoor recreation grant is $750,000 from Texas Parks and Wildlife to renovate and improve parks in Yoakum. This has been in the works for months, with applications for the grant ending in August. The top three priorities in this plan from the grant included pool renovation, improvements in hike and bike walking trails, and baseball and volleyball courts renovation. While 40% of the $750,000 funding will be going toward the use of a splash pad at the pool, 10% will go toward renovations of the bathrooms. A Yoakum public survey from MRB Group of 373 responses showed that 15.5% automatically said yes for parks and recreation improvements, 54.7% would support a bond depending on the project and 13.7% said yes depending on the amount, 11.3% had no opinion, and 4.8% declined.

Rosas said support from the city for these parks’ improvements have been very helpful.