TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) – A small request from a young girl in Tampa is now making big changes throughout the city – all because she wanted to play softball.
Nine-year-old Evangeline Iarossi said she was frustrated because Tampa didn’t have enough softball fields, only baseball. So, she wrote a letter to Tampa Mayor Jane Castor.
“It’s not the 1800s anymore, girls are playing more sports,” Iarossi said.
She says she was on a mission. The young athlete told the mayor that there was only one field where her Palma Ceia team could play due to the fact softball fields have a clay infield as opposed to baseball fields that have a grass infield.
It turns out, small acts of courage are often recognized in a big way. The mayor not only read Evangeline’s letter but Mayor Castor had her team from the city apply for grant money from Disney and the city of Tampa was the only city in Florida to get it. Through the eyes of a fourth-grader, change was born.
More fields are on the way for more girls. And in a twist of sweet irony, it was the men from the Princeton rowing team training in the Tampa Bay area that helped get the diamonds ready for this field of dreams and its dreamer.
Evangeline proves a big point – passion plus persuasion, plus putting a pen to paper is clearly the way to score a home run in this game.
