Greetings Baseball Supporters!
We’re almost there! Thanks to an incredible group of supporters, and many generous donations in the last few weeks, we are approaching our $25,000 goal for our End of Year Fundraising Campaign. Here are a few of the many planned enhancements these funds are allowing us to achieve:
- Replace much of the sod outside the dugouts with carpet, requiring framing, plugging sprinkler heads, and soil grading in front of the first base dugout (photo at right). Will do the same on the third base side next weekend, weather permitting.
Soil grading, addition, compaction, and carpet work over the next two weeks.
If you’ve already donated, thank you so much! And if you haven’t yet, please click the “Donate Today” button below to help us push this campaign over the line!
The Oakland Field of Dreams (OFOD) is a non-Profit organization that manages, maintains, improves and sustains the Rickey Henderson Field (RHF) for Oakland Unified School District (OUSD), Oakland Technical High School (OTHS), and Bay Area Baseball players. OFOD is focused on the promotion of Youth Baseball in Oakland by maintaining Rickey Henderson Field as a pristine, inner city baseball complex.
For more information about OFOD and RHF, and some comments on our journey, please refer to our most recent Newsletter.
Recently, the Oakland Heritage Alliance honored OFOD with a Partners in Preservation Award, for 15 years of Stewardship of Rickey Henderson Field. The Awards ceremony took place at the Oakland Scottish Rite Center at 1547 Lakeside Drive, on Sunday, October 15, 2023.
Click here to read more about this well-deserved award.
This level of Stewardship rewarded by OHA comes at a price. Unfortunately, like many other organizations, our Fundraising was a Pandemic victim.
We are hoping that you will be able to support our 2023 End of Year Fundraiser. Our current and past Board Members are on track to pledge $12,500 and we’re hoping to match that from our many supporters and fans – for a total of $25,000.
In addition to accumulated costs from the past three and a half years, we have several major projects to complete before the 2024 high school season begins:
- RHF Backfield and Batting Cage Lights: For safety purposes we need lighting on our storage containers and the vehicular entrance / exit to the RHF backfield area. The container lighting will include illumination of the gate leading to the OIHS soccer practice areas. We will also install switched lights for the two batting cages in the backfield.
- Renovation of the double bullpen mound in the backfield: This important practice resource has not been used much in recent years because the pitching footing and ramp needs to be shored up and secured. In addition, we will add a simple hinged screen behind the catcher area, so it can be moved out of the way when the bullpen is not in use.
- Renovation of the home plate area bleachers: We initiated some upgrades of the bleachers in Summer 2022. We would like to complete those upgrades before the 2024 High School season.
After more than 15 years of operation, Rickey Henderson Field is the best it has ever been. Each year, the field provides “a place to play” in an urban setting for many hundreds of young players, including at-risk youth in the local community.
Please consider helping us with these critical projects, and help to keep Rickey Henderson Field and Oakland Field of Dreams a valuable resource for so many Oakland youth.
Oakland Field of Dreams (OFOD).
In 2009, a small group of Oakland Tech parents and alums created the Oakland Field of Dreams (OFOD), a California non-profit public benefit corporation, to help maintain the Rickey Henderson Field in its current condition and to fund incremental improvements. OFOD is also a tax-exempt charitable organization under 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, with Taxpayer EIN 38-380227.
Our mailing address is:
Attention:
Anthony Barr—Treasurer Oakland Field of Dreams
c/o The Henry Levy Group – A CPA Firm
1726 Solano Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94707