Planning starts for PONY softball tournaments in Valley

YOUNGSTOWN — In a transition year, in which a new nonprofit group took over running the area’s PONY National softball tournaments, it became obvious that hosting 260 teams from across the country was too much work for the current volunteers.

That need helped fuel the start of a new group organized by the Mahoning County Convention and Visitor’s Bureau called the Valley Volunteer Corps.

Phil Moore, director of the CVB, said the organizers of the tournament, including Boardman Community Baseball and Thunder Elite Fastpitch Inc. of Vienna, discovered that it takes a lot of people to sell and collect tickets, run concession stands and maintain the baseball fields for such a tournament.

When discussions turned to scaling back the three-year-old tournament, Moore said he changed the conversation to “How can we help?”

The answer was to recruit volunteers.

Moore realized the softball organizers were not the only groups in Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties needing such assistance, however. So when Moore begins to invite the public to start-up meetings for the volunteer corps next month, it will be for more than just softball tournaments.

It also will be an invitation to those who can help with the Summer Festival of the Arts, held at Youngstown State University in early July, or to those who might be willing to serve as a tour guide for tour buses that Moore hopes to attract in increasing numbers.

He says there are many other organizations that would also welcome volunteers.

Tim Kaple, president of Boardman Community Baseball, said the PONY organization began to advertise on its Web site two weeks ago that national championship tournaments for four age groups would be held in the Mahoning Valley on July 19-31.

A contract has not been signed yet, but everything looks secure to bring about the same number of games and participants to the area that played here last year, Kaple said.

Read the full story Monday in The Vindicator and on Vindy.com