Kids Inc. provides update on Rockrose Sports Park

AMARILLO, Texas (KAMR/KCIT) — Kids Inc. President and CEO, Jimmy Lackey provided an update on the Rockrose Sports Park.

According to Lackey over the past few years they have raised $22.5 million and have about $5 million left to raise in order to reach the $28 million goal for phase one of the project.

“We’ve got to prove to people this project’s real,” said Lackey. It’s fixing to get going and so we will have about an 18 month to pay out with the contractor to pay for the project. We’ve got enough in hand to last us 13, 14, months. So that’s why the board felt comfortable being able to move forward. And so, we’ll continue to raise those final dollars so that when those final bills come in, we’re ready to pay them.”

Lackey shared they have a line of credit in place, but he does not anticipate having to use a line of credit. Lackey believes they will be able to pay cash as they go.

In September Lackey shared they had a board meeting where the board approved his request to sign a contract and move forward with the engineers. Currently, Kids Inc contractors and engineers are working together to establish drainage plans.

“My understanding is as soon as those drainage plans are all agreed to one another, we’re going to be able to break dirt,” said Lackey. “The engineering part of it is extremely important, and it’s all centered around the drainage. The drainage has to go in concrete with all these other entities involved under I-27 over to those Playa lakes between Randall High School and I-27. That’s critical for long term, because we don’t need any more super floods when we get those rains. And so that’s what’s that’s what’s being taken care of behind the scenes right now.”

According to Lackey the first phase of the project includes building baseball, softball, soccer and flag football fields.

“Pretty much anything that you can do on turf you’re going to be able to do it this complex,” explained Lackey. “They make chalk paint so you can put new lines down if you want to play something different, volleyball, if you want to have grass volleyball. That’s the beautiful thing about this turf is it’s modular in the sense that you can pretty much do anything that you do outdoors on grass.”

Once construction starts Lackey anticipates that it will take between 12-18 months to complete the project from start to finish.

Lackey shared this idea all came about when leaders in town wanted to provide a quality centralized playing service for kids in the community and help with the growing trend in youth sports.

“I’ve got single parents out there. I’ve got grandparents raising kiddos on fixed incomes, and when they can go to one complex and all the kids play at one place, versus scattered out two or three places over town, because they’re in different age levels, that’s tough on folks, particularly those single parents,” said Lackey. “If we can centralize those out there for them, that makes it easy on those folks.”

Additionally, Lackey shared they’ll be able to host tournaments and have events on the turf in a rain safe environment.

Last year Lackey said they had 18,600 kids go through their program and that as Kids Inc. grows the economic impact on the community grows.

If you’d like to donate to the project, you can do so by visiting their website , as well as see the programs they offer kids.

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