A team from Okotoks United Church is preparing for a trip to the Dominican Republic where it will host a week-long baseball camp for youngsters in an impoverished area.
Members of the church have made seven trips to the barrio of Maria Auxiliadora in the past nine years, but this will be the first one since 2019 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It will also be the smallest group the church has sent to the Caribbean country as the team going from July 2 to 12 will be comprised of just three people.
“We’ve made a lot of trips there over the years and helped out with a lot of different initiatives, things like a new preschool, clean water and sports programs,” said Gary Dzurka, who will be making his eighth trip this July. “This time we’ll be running a baseball camp.”
Dzurka will be joined by Curtis Carlson of Okotoks, an 18-year-old who has made six previous trips starting when he was 11 years old, and his brother John Dzurka of Arizona who will be making the trek for the first time.
Dzurka has been collecting baseball equipment, everything from balls, bats and gloves to cleats, bases and helmets, from the regional landfill salvage centre for more than two years and now has enough equipment for all 75 kids attending the camp as well as to help start a school baseball program.
The initiative also got a nice boost from Pablo Forno, owner of Grand Slam Sports in Okotoks, who donated 100 jerseys to the cache of gear heading south after learning about the camp when Dzurka’s wife was in his store to buy her husband a pair of cleats.
“We saw this as an opportunity to help some kids out, that’s essentially what it comes down to,” Forno said of the generous donation.
Dzurka said the jerseys will be a tremendous benefit for the program and will allow the kids to participate with other local teams in the area.
The camp will primarily feature skill development sessions by age groups, including one for the 19 girls who have signed up. Dzurka hopes the camp will lead to the establishment of the first all-girls team in the barrio. The final day will include a mini tournament followed by dinner and awards.
Okotoks United Church is affiliated with Partners in Deed Society of Alberta, which for over 20 years has been supporting TEARS, a community development charity that assists those in a former squatters’ camp established after a major hurricane in the 1980s that has since become permanent housing.
Teams the church has sent to the Dominican Republic over the years have ranged in size from 11 to 25 people, many of them teenagers, and have undertaken a variety of outreach projects, including helping the soccer program construct a field and then later installing lights around it.
Dzurka said not only will the camp provide kids something to do during their summer break, but by leaving all the equipment behind he hopes baseball will follow soccer’s lead and turn into a long-term program that runs on its own.
“This is a poor area where most of the families can’t afford for their kids to play sports," he said. "So hopefully this leads to something more.”
