League on base for snack shack

Volunteers from the Penobscot Job Corps are working hard to make the dreams of the Orono-Veazie Little League come true.

Bob O’Neil’s facility maintenance students are building a 16-foot-by-20-foot two-story structure that will house a snack shack and announcer’s booth.

“It’s one of the things that we do,” said Mike Jellison, a longtime Orono-Veazie Little League volunteer and an instructor at the Penobscot Job Corps. “We have a long history at Penobscot of community service,” he said.

Jellison has been teaching there since 1982, and he’s been volunteering for the Little League since 1990. He brought the two organizations together.

“We’ve been trying to get the snack shack built since the get-go,” he said.

Two years ago, he approached Bob O’Neil, since construction is O’Neil’s area of expertise. Since then they’ve struggled with finances, getting materials and getting onto the planning board’s busy agenda.

The project is student-driven, said O’Neil. Students were involved with drawing up the plans and material estimations. They excavated the site behind the batting cage and will build the structure at the Job Corps, piecing it together in Orono. They’re hoping to finish the project within a few weeks.

Mike Carr, the president of the Orono-Veazie Little League, said they’ve done a lot of work on the field as well. They’ve weeded, cut base lines, put up a scoreboard and more.

For the Little League, the new building means that more than one volunteer can squeeze into the concessions booth, and parents can hear their children’s name announced when they step up to the plate, according to Jellison and Norm Poirier, the director of Parks and Recreation for Orono, and Jellison.

“It’ll allow us to attract Little League playoff games here as well,” said Poirier.

Poirier believes everyone benefits from the project, but the Job Corps volunteers are getting the most out of it.

“[The] benefit comes to students learning how to build this kind of structure from the ground up,” Poirier said.

Jellison and Carr believe the students have gained a sense of volunteerism, in addition to the skills they’ve learned.

Students in O’Neil’s class have been with him for varying amounts of time. “It makes it real challenging. You run from start to finish and back again in a single day,” he said.

“That’s when student leaders come into play,” said Ursula Parker, career transition specialist for Penobscot Job Corps.

O’Neil places the ones with more experience in leadership roles, teaching basic skills to the newcomers.

“It gives them more confidence when they’re able to teach,” said O’Neil. It’s when his students get to that level that he can “hook them up with builders in the area willing to take on novices.”

Jellison is proud of the work the Penobscot Job Corps does.

“[We] help young people find a direction, find themselves. They push forward,” he said.