The Kellogg Community College baseball team’s home game against Sinclair Community College on Sunday, April 22, has been rescheduled for early next month, but that doesn’t mean the team will be taking the day off.
Rather, beginning at 2 p.m. at Battle Creek’s Bailey Park, the Bruins will host more than two dozen youth from New Level Sports Ministries, a nonprofit student-athlete organization based in Battle Creek, for baseball fun and snacks.
Eric Laskovy, the Bruins head coach, said the team volunteers for an hour with the organization every Tuesday and Thursday for much of the year to help kids with their homework, play games and spend quality time with them after school at the New Level Sports facility located at 400 Michigan Ave. W.
Wilda Nelms, director of the S.T.A.T.S. (Supporting Talented Athletes To Success) mentorship program at New Level Sports, said that the kids — whose grade levels range from kindergarten to middle school — and the team volunteers usually start with completing homework assignments and progress to spending a half hour or so playing games and having dinner.
Nelms said the original plan for Sunday’s game was to bring the kids out to see the Bruins play, but things had to be adjusted when the game was rescheduled.
“The coach decided that the players enjoy interacting with the kids and that it could be a fun time to share this opportunity with them,” Nelms said.
Nelms said she expects around two dozen kids or more to attend the event.
For more information about the baseball program at Kellogg Community College, visit www.kellogg.edu/athletics/baseball/index.html.
For photos from a recent game against Kalamazoo Valley Community College — including the photo above — visit Kellogg Community College’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/KelloggCommunityCollege/photos.