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The Chicago Hope Academy, the city’s only non-denominational Christian independent private high school, and the Chicago Lions have spent the past two months building upon the partnership they developed in 2009 by reconstructing the field each club uses as their home pitch for rugby and other sporting activities throughout the year.
The pitch known as ‘Lions for Hope Field’ is in the midst of a groundbreaking improvement that will serve inner-city youth and national level sporting events for decades to come.
What was once home to an urban scrapyard and the like is now enjoying a much needed makeover in an area where crime and misdeeds have plagued local families and students for far too many years.
The Chicago Hope Academy and the Chicago Lions have quickly turned this tattered, unsafe, and uneven field with a faulty foundation into the premier place for people young and old to find a safe haven for activity in downtown Chicago, with the renovation project now serving as a way to promote growth and prosperity to residents who have longed for change.
Former Lions Captain Dustin Hugen has served as lead architect of the project and has overseen each step of the plan from its inception to where the pitch stands today.
“Having access to a field like this in the city of Chicago is a luxury that no other club or school can take advantage of,” says Hugen.
“We’ve put in tireless hours of planning and labor on this upgrade, and by doing so we are not only protecting this amazing opportunity in front of us by taking care of what we have, but we’re also extending the Hope Academy and Lions partnership’s reach by creating a pitch that will be the premier place to play rugby in the Midwest.”
The remaking of Lions for Hope Field has been a tall task, to say the least. Crews have worked day and night during the hot summer months to tear apart the field’s old foundation and begin laying a new surface.
Chicago Hope Academy has funded the majority of renovation costs, with all the labor being produced by volunteers coming from each organization to help the project come in on-budget and ahead of schedule.
Marty Wiggins serves as head coach of the Chicago Lions, but you wouldn’t know it by watching him till lines on the tractor like he has nearly every night for the past three weeks.
He, like every other contributor to the project, realizes that sacrifice, dedication, commitment are the key components to success here – not so different from what he preaches to his team during the season.
“Without proper support from our club’s members and partners, this project would never have come together like it has,” adds Wiggins.
“It takes a total team effort to achieve great goals, and that fact was never more clear than last week when 35 guys from our club showed up to the field after their work-day to spend four hours sifting through debris, dirt, stones, grime, and muck to clear way for the sodding process that needed to be done the next week. It just doesn’t get any better than that.”
The Lions for Hope Field renovation project is nearing completion and is expected to be finished and ready for use by the end of August.