Royal Lane Baseball Field Restoration

In the Spring of 2022, the Lewis Family Foundation led the restoration of the Royal Lane Baseball Fields in partnership with the Episcopal School of Dallas.  The project was kicked off by the Lewis family after watching two local baseball fields sit dormant since the October 2019 tornado struck the area.  “We have lived in this community since 2004 and watched three of our children grow up playing youth baseball and softball on these fields as part of the YMCA sports program.  We felt it was time to step in and lead this restoration for the community and the children.  Part of our Foundation mission is to create safe, healthy and fun environments for children to grow their self-confidence and passion for sports.  This project allowed the sounds of baseball and children’s voices to return to our community in a positive way.”

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The project started by bringing together the field owners, the Royal Lane Baptist Church and the Semones YMCA, who leases the fields for youth sports to discuss ways to help.  From the initial meeting, the Church and the YMCA had the same goal; restore the fields to safe playable condition as soon as possible.  With support of the Episcopal School of Dallas, the Lewis Family Foundation provided over $30,000 of capital to fix the field irrigation, fencing, fan bleachers, dug-out benches and electrical issues leftover from the tornado damage. Once the base infrastructure was repaired, the focused was on the actual field grass conditions by securing pest control, lawncare and reestablishing a real baseball configuration including base paths, base cutouts and pitcher’s mounds with specialty dirt.  

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The Episcopal School of Dallas Facilities and Grounds team members of Jay Michael and Kwinton Brown provided great vendor relationships, extensive turf management knowledge, manpower and specialty equipment to assist with completing the project.  This project could not have been completed without the help and support of those two gentlemen, ESD Administration and Athletic Department.

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These fields have and will always be a point of pride for the Church, YMCA, families, and the community at large. Given all we've been through the last two years, getting children outside playing sports reestablishes and teaches the importance of community more than ever.