PUEBLO, Colo. (KOAA) — More than 400 kids gathered at the Runyon Sports Complex in Pueblo for a baseball and softball clinic where they received a $5,000 donation to help cover the rising costs of youth sports.
The kids learned skills from the CSU Pueblo baseball team ahead of the ThunderWolves' annual Pack the Park game.
“This is a big time event. It’s a big time event for our program, for our community, for our players to get out and reach out to the younger generation and get them excited about the game that we love, the game of baseball,” said CSU Pueblo head coach Bobby Applegate.
Runyon Sports Complex general manager Larry Romero says nearly 2,500 kids participate at that complex on a weekly basis. He calls it a landing spot for the youth in Pueblo.
“It’s important that our kids stay connected to a sport. I always preach that, whether they are doing music, baseball, softball, whatever they are doing, as long as they are connected to something, our society is going to be much better,” said.
One struggle surrounding youth sports in recent years has been the cost to play and purchase equipment.
“In terms of just costs to play in the league and to supply themselves, they’re probably looking at $400 or $500 a child,” said youth parent Miles Gorham.
To help offset these expenses, Sam Kunzman made a generous donation on behalf of the James S. Kunzman Foundation. Sam Kunzman has ties to southern Colorado after playing baseball for Otero Junior College.
“The goal is to fund things as mundane as bags and catchers equipment and balls and helmets and things that can be used for multiple years with their greatest amount of width of the most amount of kids we can have,” said Kunzman.
Romero said the funds will help provide essential gear for the eight and nine-year-old teams.
“A lot of the teams when they start out don’t have catchers gear. They don’t have bats. It’s hard to find wooden bats for smaller, younger kids. The money will be used for a lot of that stuff. So, they will use the catching gear, they’ll turn it in at the end of the season and I would hope that we can get two or three years out of a set of catching gear, the bats, two or three years and just continually feeding our programs coming up,” said Romero.
He also mentioned they plan to set some of the money aside to host more free clinics for youth in the future.
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