During intermission at the Plastic Soul concert on Wednesday, August 5th (see “Grooving to the Sounds of Plastic Soul”), a baseball scholarship was awarded on behalf of Assemblywoman Jaime Williams, in place of the weekly raffles, at the Marine Park Summer Concert Series.
Rosie Troman, a beloved teacher at P.S. 312 Bergen Beach School, addressed the crowd during the concert intermission and explained that her former student, Carlos Lopez, who plays with the EE&P Bandits, a neighborhood baseball league that practices on the Amity Little League Field, located on Knapp Street, was $1,200 away from his dream of playing in Cooperstown, New York, the home of baseball and the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Lopez is an outstanding baseball player. He is 12 years old and has received scholarships from high schools, as well as being scouted by Team Dominican Republic to represent his own country and play baseball for them.
Troman, a teacher and a baseball buff herself, wholeheartedly believes that teaching means going above and beyond and helping however she can, so she made it her mission to help Lopez achieve his dream of playing in Cooperstown.
She shared that fundraising and procuring the funds was difficult. Troman tried reaching out to several elected officials with no avail. “Jaime was the only one who agreed to help him without thinking twice. When she says that she’s here to help the community, she really means it,” Troman said.
This act of kindness was an example of the expression, “It takes a village to raise a child.” It was also a great instance of becoming a tighter knit community, meeting the amazing teacher from P.S. 312 that will find a way, the young baseball player trying to follow his dream and the elected official that made a mountain look like an anthill – examples of people and cool stories that you didn’t know existed until you attend a weekly concert.
