Pennies for Parks using sales tax increase to maintain youth sports fields in George County

LUCEDALE, Miss. (WLOX) – Youth sports in George County are so popular that the city of Lucedale passed a restaurant and hotel sales tax increase to help fund its parks and ball fields, which are struggling to accommodate the youth sports programs.

“Until we get some more fields, we are going to run out of space for kids. This last year, we had over 430 kids sign up and then we cut the numbers back,” Billy Anderson, Lucedale’s Little League baseball director said.

He told WLOX News, he has watched the programs push the limits of what the current facilities can offer, especially for baseball and soccer.

“We all play in one complex,” Anderson explained. “Soccer plays down the hill, we play up the hill, that’s how we describe it. With the county growing, we’re at capacity, and we could both use each other’s fields to continue to grow.”

George-Greene County Soccer Association President Clay Wedgeworth is all too familiar with the problem.

“You have to work with each other to find out when you’re going to practice, when I’m going to practice,” he said. “And Saturdays it is from dawn to dusk, all day, but the kids enjoy it.”

12 acres of land were recently donated to the city of Lucedale to build a new soccer complex with 14 fields. While the Pennies for Parks program will not fund the million-dollar project, the sales tax dollars will maintain it, along with all the other facilities, and introduce a new Athletics Programs director.

The referendum passed Tuesday night to tack on an additional 1% tax on restaurant sales and a 3% tax on hotel sales.

George County residents are expected to vote on the same sales tax increase in November.

“It’s easily over a thousand kids that will come through and be needing somewhere to practice and play,” Lucedale’s Ward Four Alderman Al ‘’Coach’’ Jones. “If we can get the new soccer complex built, then we’ll come back to where soccer is now and use those fields to build some more baseball, softball fields and also put a pee-wee football field in.”

Jones told WLOX News, he is passionate about this project, partly because he dedicated 30 years of his life to helping foster a passion for sports in kids.

The soccer complex and expansion of existing parks will not happen overnight, as both Lucedale and George County look for outside funding sources, like grants and state funds, to help supplement tight budgets.

“The old saying is — how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time,” Jones remarked. “We’re taking our first bite and we’re going to keep chewing on it and keep working on it until we can accommodate these young people. They’re only young one time in life.”

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