PARIS — Between fundraising online and receiving donations from area businesses, an Oxford County Comprehensive High School junior has raised enough money to begin construction on dugouts for the baseball field at Oxford Hills Middle School.
William Dieterich, 17, said the project is part of his Eagle Scout Project, and he has been brainstorming for his project since he joined the Scouts in fifth grade.
“I was in middle school at the time I started thinking about what to do, so I knew that dugouts were something that was fundamentally missing there,” Dieterich said. “I was a player on a team that had to use that ballfield when it didn’t have a dugout. It affected me and is going to continue to affect plenty of people. Any time that there’s inclement weather, there’s no place for the team to go, and they would have to cancel the game.”
After deciding to focus on constructing dugouts for the Oxford Hills Middle School baseball field, he started a GoFundMe page and held other fundraisers to get the money necessary to start construction.
Dieterich said that between local lumber companies donating and discounting materials necessary to construct the dugouts and community members donating money on GoFundMe for the cost of concrete and other materials, “I’ve completed my fundraising.”
“Right now, I’m on the next step of the project, which is actually building the dugouts,” he said. “My goal is to get them built before winter, but that all depends on how fast we get the concrete set in place. If the weather is compliant, then there’s nothing stopping us from getting it done before next spring.”
Dieterich said that he recently held a clean-up day at the Oxford Hills Middle School ballfield, and that “when I actually start building, I’ll probably need more volunteers.”
He added that his tenure in the Boy Scouts will come to an end on his 18th birthday, which is just shy of a year away.
“I have until then to complete the project,” Dieterich said. “I’m 100 percent sure I’ll get it done by then. I have the money necessary to get started, and the community support, so I’m not worried at all.”
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