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GRPD: Teams With Community Youth With Baseball Program

picture of officer helping batter
www.grandrapidsmi.gov

With the weather finally starting to cooperate, all things spring and summer are starting to bloom.  And that includes the Grand Rapids Police Department’s annual kids’ baseball program entitled, “On Base”.  Last year about 100 youth signed up and officials are encouraging gets to get registered now if they want to “play ball”.

“We have many returning kids that have been beating down our door, saying when is registration going to open, well its open. And we’ve already had, overnight, we had 30 students that signed up for the program.”

And that program is Grand Rapids Police Department’s OnBase youth baseball program… and   Sgt. Cathy Williams, Public Information Officer for the GRPD says they’re ready to play ball and build relationships.

“There’s lots of reasons why this program is amazing. One is to create opportunity to interact and build those relationships in a non-traditional way.  Of course you’ve got active lifestyle, but this is about relationships.” But really about relationships and building that relationship with the police department and the community and with those youngest residents, our children.”

The program, now in its fifth year, kicks off in early June.  But now’s the time to for youth ages 9 to 12 to get signed up.

“Our first practice is June 4th. We’re continuing Tuesday and Thursday throughout summer, unitl July 16th.  All games at Huff Park. 10 to noon and end with lunch. And then at the very end, we’ll have an all team tournament.”

Sgt. Williams says On Base has lots of support from community donors, so it’s a free program with uniforms, games, equipment and food included.  To get signed up Williams says you can go to thea city of Grand Rapids’ website and search OnBase or go to the GRPD facebook page to register.

Jennifer is an award winning broadcast news journalist with more than two decades of professional television news experience including the nation's fifth largest news market. She's worked as both news reporter and news anchor for television and radio in markets from Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo all the way to San Francisco, California.