Five softball teams from Aylmer to Gracefield faced off in Luskville on Saturday in a tournament that doubled as a fundraiser for Animal Aide Pontiac.
After a full day of games, Aylmer’s Flying Monkeys claimed the tournament trophy, and $1,500 was raised for the non-profit animal care organization.
Animal Aide Pontiac is a volunteer-run organization that does animal rescue and reproduction control across the Pontiac and beyond.
Kath Morris, a volunteer with the organization, spends her days off from her job driving all across the region to collect animals that need to be spayed or neutered and driving them to a veterinary clinic with the most affordable rates she can find.
“We focus a lot on community spay-neuter trips so that many people have access to the same lower cost spay-neuter,” she said.
“We’re doing probably 500-600 cats and dogs per year, being paid for by their owners. If all those people didn’t have access to the community spay-neuter, those people would still be having puppies and kittens, and people wouldn’t be getting their vet checks for their animals.”
The other part of her work involves rescuing stray animals, having them spayed or neutered, and trying to find them homes. The costs associated with this are high, and paid for both by fundraising she does, private donations, and sometimes from her own pocket.
She said she was grateful for the support from the ball tournament, which will help her continue her mission of helping pet owners access essential care for their animals.
“When Thomas sent me an email I was like, that’s totally awesome. Our need is great because our bills are high. We spend thousands of dollars, sometimes every month.”
Thomas Rae has been organizing tournaments at the Luskville ballfield for the past two seasons.
“For this one in particular I wanted to put the money or any profit we make towards something,” he said.
Rae has been working alongside the Municipality of Pontiac for over a year to revive the ball diamonds at the Luskville Recreational Park so they can better host events like the tournament over the weekend.
“I kind of just wanted to step in and help out with whatever I could,” he said.
He and some friends registered themselves as a non-profit under the name Super Duper Softball to able to better support the municipality in this effort. This season is the second he’s organizing tournaments at the park.
“I couldn’t be happier,” he said of seeing the ballfield used again after several years of being dormant. He said this season they’ve also teamed up with Groupe Action Jeunesse to host a youth baseball league.
“The push is to have the two communities [Quyon and Luskville] play against each other eventually, when the Luskville kids are a little more used to it, because [this season] we had kids that had never touched a ball, or didn’t own a glove.”
