Neighborhood’s wish for ball field comes true after donors step up

When you visit the new ball field at Prairie Meadows Park, you can see the sidewalks, the bases and team benches and the backstop behind home plate. What you can’t see is how it changed the Heather Ridge neighborhood in nontangible ways.

Photos courtesy J Nour Photography

“I think we’re more proud to live where we live and of who our neighbors are,” said Emily Fink, one of the organizers who helped raise $175,000 to construct the new ballpark. “That’s the feeling that we got coming away from this. Sunday at the opening ceremony when we’re all together at the park, that’s going to be a real special moment.”

Sammons Field is located next to Journey Elementary School. Prairie Meadows Park is part of the city of Sioux Falls’ network of parks; the school is part of the Harrisburg School District.

The playing field was named for Sammons Financial Group. The insurance holding company’s member companies offer financial service and retirement products.

Dozens of other donations came from other businesses and individuals, Fink said. Teams of volunteers solicited gifts in May and June, including members of a youth baseball team.

“It was so crazy, all these gifts rolling in,” Fink said. “Someone would give $1,000, someone else would give $500. My son and I would go out knocking on doors for maybe two hours and pull in $600. It was rare for someone to say no, that they wouldn’t give a little bit even.”

The project also received $12,000 from the Sioux Falls’ Neighborhood Grant Funds, making Heather Ridge one of a dozen organized neighborhoods that had their funding proposals accepted this year. Heather Ridge also received funding last year to plant trees at the park.

The new field at Prairie Meadows Park replaces an essentially bare area, where only a backstop and a strip of dirt for the pitching mound once indicated that softball and baseball games could take place.

Sammons Field will be open to the public on a first-come, first-served basis, Fink said.

“Anybody that wants to show up at the field could, and anybody in the area can use it since it’s a city park,” she said. “I also imagine teams will show up to practice, but there will be no formal games or no league games there.”

Construction on the field began in the last half of September. For a while, supporters considered a two-phase proposal, one that would allow them to begin construction with less than $100,000 raised. That also required less permitting from the city of Sioux Falls.

But when Sammons Financial, which has multiple employees living in the Heather Ridge neighborhood, made its donation, organizers decided to raise the full amount. Heather Ridge runs from 69^th to 85th streets and Minnesota to Western avenues.

“When that happened, it elevated the energy of the group and totally pushed us to be more motivated,” Fink said.

The Parks and Recreation board approved the project in July with the City Council giving its approval in August.

The team benches will be placed later this week. On Friday, a special plaque honoring Dane McCoy will be installed. The field will be dedicated to Dane, who lived in the Heather Ridge neighborhood until his death Feb. 17, 2022, in a snowmobile accident. The 11-year-old son of Rob and Jackie McCoy was a fan of baseball and other outdoor sports.

A plot of ground that once was a blank page now has a ball field that will draw people to it, Fink said.

“It’s been really neat to see the field come out of the ground when they were constructing it,” she said. “When the construction trucks first showed up at the park, there was a lot of buzz and texting— ‘The trucks are here,’ and we could feel like it’s actually happening.”

If you go

The opening ceremony for Sammons Park at Prairie Meadows Park, next to Harrisburg’s Journey Elementary, will be from 3 to 5 p.m. Sunday with a program at 4 p.m. Free ice cream will be served while supplies last, and food trucks will be on site. There will also be games and music.