Fields on Track to Open Early at Spring Valley-East Communities Center

The baseball and soccer fields at Spring Valley-East Communities Center are set to open early.

San Diego Youth Services, which leases the center, planned for the fields to be completed by November, but they could be open as early as late August. Workers began laying sod on Monday and finished on Friday, said Steven Jella, associate executive director of San Diego Youth Services.

“It looks like we’ll have it open, hopefully, by the end of August,” Jella said. “We’re slightly ahead of schedule at this point.”

For the next several weeks, the lawn will be watered and prepared for use by organized sports teams.

Jella said San Diego Youth Services is recruiting the American Youth Soccer Organization, as well as local little, senior and softball leagues, to use the space once it is completed.

“The number one purpose of this is that there is structured, safe, organized activity,” Jella said. “We want it to be a safe place, and we want it to be an environment that has activity happening.”

The completion of the grassy fields is the next step of the transformation of the center, which was once Spring Valley Elementary School.

After the La Mesa-Spring Valley School District closed the school because of declining enrollment, San Diego Youth Services stepped in to lease the site to provide services to the community, with the help of its partners.

“We loved the idea of this site being used for social services,” Jella said. “We could make that happen; we know how to do that work.”

The nonprofit leased the roughly 26,000-square-foot classroom space in October 2009, Jella said, and began to recruit partners to provide family-oriented support and home-based services to East County families. 

With classrooms now filled, several volunteer projects have focused on transforming the outdoor space.

Already this year, and . In May, more than 300 volunteers from at the Spring Valley-East Communities Center.

Barbara Warner, collaborative coordinator with San Diego Youth & Family Coalition, which has an office space at the center, is thrilled for the latest renovation project.

“It’s really going to be a facility that serves people from the toddler playground to older adults. There’s going to be exercise opportunities for everybody,” Warner said. “Generally, in this area when you build a sports field, people come in droves. There’s always a need for more fields.”

In addition to San Diego Youth Services and its community partners, Warner credited County Supervisor Dianne Jacob for her support in the project.

“Supervisor Jacob is a big fan of sports fields and has been behind a lot of installation of fields in our area,” Warner said.

Jacob recommended the Board of Supervisors allocate $150,000 to help further add to the project site with soccer and baseball fields. The grant, which was approved 5-0, is from the county’s Neighborhood Reinvestment Program.

The grant helped fund the irrigation system and sod for the fields.

“My goal has been, since the Neighborhood Reinvestment Program was established 12 years ago, to work with other organizations in East County–school districts, little leagues, community-based organizations—to improve the recreational facilities for our kids,” Jacob said.

Jacob said the Spring Valley-East Communities Center is “a model for the rest of the region.”

“I’m really pleased to be able to partner with all of these volunteers and other organizations that have been a part of this effort,” Jacob said. “With the way the community has come together to help kids and help families in a variety of ways, I don’t know of anything like it.”

Although the fields are not open yet, families are encouraged to use the walking track, exercise stations and other services offered at the center.

“Building better health is one of the major efforts of the county,” Jacob said. “We want to encourage kids and families to get out and exercise and be healthy.”