POND ISLAND--Cyriel Pfennings-Richardson hit a home run at the Little League Ballpark Friday. The group he founded with John Sandiford, RebuildSXM, combined for a grand slam.
Pfennings–Richardson was playing ball at age 12 and under baseball team of the Little League’s Player Development. He pulled an inside pitch for a four bagger.
Once the game was over, RebuildSXM, officially donated a truck container to Player Development which will be used as an afterschool classroom to improve the children’s reading, writing, math and science before they play.
RebuildSXM was formed shortly after Hurricane Irma devastated the Island by Pfennings–Richardson and Sandiford, who are both from St. Maarten but currently live in the Netherlands.
“We wanted to help our families and friends,” said Pfennings–Richardson. The group started raising money. RebuildSXM visited the Island in December and noted what was needed.
“I played on this field,” said Sandiford. “I remember how bad it was after Luis. When Cyriel told me a Little League coach needed help, I said let’s do it.”
Members of RebuildSXM visited Player Development in December and realized the sports programme needed to be on the field not inside the stadium. Player Development comprised four truck containers before the storm, housing a classroom, a science lab, a reading lab and a fully equipped gym. It was all blown away.
The Little League programme moved into the stadium and continued with the after-school help, but the sports suffered in part due to the schools letting out at different times making supervised practice and ensuring homework was done nearly impossible.
The container arrived Sunday morning. Monday afternoon, the children had two tables set up and a small tarp for shade. The children did their work and were ready to play when RebuildSXM showed up. The children invited the adults to play ball with them.
The true genus of the donation was, the container had to be shipped from the Netherlands to St. Maarten as currently containers are in high demand on the Island.
So, it was loaded up with sports equipment and school supplies and placed on a boat. This past week the RebuildSXM crew returned to St. Maarten to visit dozens of schools and organizations and pass out everything from gymnastics equipment to balls and basketball rims.
The last stop before the group returns to the Netherlands and continues fundraising was player Development to drop off the empty container.
Before Cyriel Pfennings-Richardson left he passed out RebuildSXM stickers to the children. They all wanted to put one on the container which they now call their Clubhouse.
