Forte & Tablada’s Kresten Brown, E.I. has graduated from the 2015 Leadership Livingston Class through the Livingston Parish Chamber of Commerce. One of the class’s requirements was for members break into three groups to select a project to work on with the community during the class. The project Kresten’s group chose is Challenger’s Field in Walker, LA. Challenger’s Field is a sports complex to provide recreational opportunities for mentally and/or physically challenged youth to serve Livingston Parish. The Challengers program existed prior to the class, so Kresten’s Leadership Livingston group came up with the concept of the ADA compliant field to further expand the program and provide a great facility for the children and participants to use. The project’s goals were: to create a website/social media sites to promote the program and to raise approximately $400,000 to fund the field, assist with an auction and research available grants for such projects and to assist with preliminary engineering drawings and field estimates.
To date, the group has applied for over 5 separate grants ranging anywhere in value from $1,000 to 50/50 matches (for the full cost) through the Cal Ripken Foundation and the Louisiana Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF). The group is currently working with the Cal Ripken Foundation in the design phase of the project. It is almost certain the monetary goals will be met and the field will be fully funded and constructed by the fall of 2016.
The goal of Leadership Livingston is to cultivate community leaders through training, simulations and volunteering. Participants are usually someone who is currently in a leadership role or would potentially be in one with their career. We encourage anyone in the company interested to consider participating.
