WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. Over several weekends this April, the Rotary Club of Williamstown donated funds and labor to help the Williamstown Cal Ripken League build an equipment shed next to its newly reconditioned softball field behind the former Broad Brook School. 

 

In early 2021, league board members Jim Easton and Chris Johnson approached Jim Mahon, grants chair of the Rotary Club of Williamstown, and requested help. In order to better establish a new softball, program a shed was needed to store equipment on season and off.

 

The Rotary Club board agreed, and last August the club obtained grant funding from its Rotary District (7890, which includes most of western Mass and central-western Connecticut).  Work was to begin in early spring 2022.

 

Apart from the steep rise in prices over the year since the grant was funded, conditions looked favorable as construction started. Easton and Mahon started on April 9, setting concrete blocks onto stone pads and leveling them; the following Friday afternoon, the two of them framed a foundation of 2x6 lumber with a plywood floor.  The next day, April 16, a crew of five Rotarians and four parents from the league set to work erecting a metal shed from a kit they purchased.

 

Unfortunately, later that day a rainstorm forced them to pause work. The following Wednesday, the half-erected shed blew down in a spring storm.  

 

Nevertheless, with the help of Adam Hall, son of Rotarians Allen and Valerie Hall and a recent engineering graduate of Union College, a small crew re-erected and repaired the structure in late April.

 

Easton then tasked some of the softball parents with the assembly of four plastic shelf units, also donated by Rotary, to place inside. 

 

Opening day for the girls' softball league was May 7.