Small community success story

The latest update on the group in a small community who have tried to keep their youth summer baseball leagues continuing without the aide of the local government is a becoming a success story. A correspondent from the Associated Press spent the day in their small community and did a story on them. The story was released through the AP and there has been a great response. The story received a lot of national media attention, and now they are also being contacted to do stories in the larger metropolitan areas surrounding them. Hopefully the publicity will help them to be able to continue their leagues for years to come.

If you would like to read the Associated Press story, here is a link:
http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/30904322/
You can also see readers comments about the story by going to the "discuss story" section at the end of the story.

Their participation in the Kellogg's Plant A Seed contest hasn't been mentioned in any of the stories, but they are still staying competitive in the contest which ends May 30, 2009.

Although today was scheduled to be their opening day, the Opening day ceremonies were rained out, so they are going to try it again tomorrow. Stories like this, when a small community comes together for the sake of the children, are a sign of the true American spirit. It is also nice to see that positive things are still happening even in these rough economic times.
If you live in a small community and have a story you would like to include in this blog, please email it to us. We hope that this story will bring a smile to the faces of all who read it.

Vote for Mitchell Field in the Kellogg's Frosted Flakes Plant A Seed contest. Help support a small community, USA

Several people in a small community in south central Ohio, where like many other communities who have been hit hard by the decline in the economy, have lost their jobs due to the closing of many of the factories in the area. In an effort to balance the budget, one of the first programs that the local government cut at the beginning of the year was the children’s youth leagues. In an effort to provide recreation for the children of the community, a committee was formed to undertake the task of running the youth leagues without the help or financial support of the local government. About the same time that this committee was being formed, another group nominated the local baseball park, Mitchell Field, for a contest that was being held by Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes. The Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes Plant A Seed contest started out with several thousand entrants, and the end result of the contest is that 30 sports fields across the nation will be renovated by the Kellogg’s company. Fortunately, Mitchell Field has made it to the final stage of the competition. The final stage consists of 100 nominees and will be narrowed down to the top 30 fields who will have their fields renovated by Kellogg’s. The renovation of the field is something that is desperately needed (the community hasn’t had the funds to update the fields & there is not a lot of recreation for the children in this small community - most are involved in the sports leagues). This years summer league sign-ups included over 400 children, which to some big cities may seem like a small amount, but to a rural community like this, it is a lot of children to be left with nothing to do during the summer months. Now the sports leagues are being run by volunteers with no financial support from the local government.
The winning fields will be chosen by a combination of amount of votes received, and by contest judges. Please help to get as many votes as possible for Mitchell Field so that it will be one of the top 30. This is a small community, not a big city like some of the other contenders (Indianapolis, IN for example) and needs the support of everyone. The voting for this final stage of the contest is for the entire month of May and ends the last day of May. Each person may vote once per day from an email address. Mitchell Field is currently holding it’s own now (staying between numbers 15 - 25 on the list of fields), but in order to stay competitive in the contest, more votes are needed. It would be a big boost to the local community to have this field renovated, not only from the perspective of much desperately needed updates to the fields but also for the moral boost that it would give a small community that hasn’t had much good luck lately.
You can help by voting for Mitchell Field in the Kellogg’s Plant A Seed contest.
Here is a direct link to vote for Mitchell Field:

http://www.frostedflakes.com/PLANT-A-SEED/FIELD/74571/FIELD.ASPX

Welcome to Small Community, USA

Welcome to Small Community, USA. The stories contained in this blog could be from your own home town, small village, or community.

This blog will include posts about life in small communities across the USA and how we are all dealing with the uncertain times & economic changes. (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, "community" is defined as a group of interacting organisms sharing an environment. In human communities, intent, belief, resources, preferences, needs, risks, and a number of other conditions may be present and common, affecting the identity of the participants and their degree of cohesiveness.)

Although our communities maybe different, we all still share some common characteristics. Readers are encouraged to send their own stories about things that are happening in their communities, and positive ways that they are coping with the economic changes. The goal of this blog is to strive to provide some insight into the problems of Small Community, USA and to help everyone realize that although right now may not be the best of times economically, there is hope and things will once again get better. On this blog, we will try to post positive stories only - an alternative to most news stories. Maybe by exchanging ideas, we can find ways to help out our own community.

If you would like to submit a story, please email it to us. Thanks for reading our blog and welcome to Small Community, USA.