Seine Bight Celebrates Opening of New Synthetic Football Field

The community of Seine Bight scored a goal yesterday with the inauguration of a new state-of-the-art synthetic football field. Stann Creek correspondent Harry Arzu has the story. 

Harry Arzu, Love News: The synthetic turf field came to reality through the kind collaboration of an organization called Coastal Harvest. Trip Amos explains. 

Trip Amos, NGO Member: “We’ve been working on through an organization called Coastal Harvest, creating a turf field that you see behind us for the Seine Bight community and for the village and for you see the cross up there just doing it for the glory of God and putting it here for  basically the community to enjoy. It is an all-turf field and just something that we came up with. We’ve been doing mission trips here for a number of years and just kind of what the old field looked like with the rocks and the puddles, that we wanted to kind of have that vision for something that the community could do together. It is a gift to the community, right? What it costs is and what’s important. What’s important is that it’s here, right? We hope this is the start of tournaments being able to come to town. Probably starting with local. As you know, we’ve got the Belize National team coming tonight for an exhibition and what we foresee and envision with the Village Council is it to be a spur for tourism and for locals to come and enjoy and have tournaments and hopefully be an economic engine.”

Harry Arzu, Love News: Jose Aleman, the chairman of the beautiful breathtaking village of Seine Bight and his village council members, collaborated with Coastal Harvest. Aleman tells us more. 

Jose Aleman, Chairman, Seine Bight Village: “It is a dream come true if you ask me, you know. It started as a sober conversation about two years ago, where Brother Amos Trip came on and started kids playing on the pitch. These guys are an NGO out of Atlanta, Georgia and of course when they saw the children playing on the pitch they said hey why not let’s do something for Seine Bight, let’s do something for that community in assisting the youths and children in Seine Bight. We should have a management team that will be managing the facility and of course it comes with rental, it comes with workout sessions, payment for that etc. And it comes in having games and usually when you have games you know you  must collect at the gate. And usually when there’s a private session you collect from that likewise. So that in itself will create funding, thus in managing the pitch in itself.”

Harry Arzu, Love News: After the ribbons were officially cut, a football match between Seine Bight football team and the Jaguars captured the attention of the massive crowd of spectators who were rooting for the local team. At the end of the spectacular match, the Jaguars won 4-3. A synthetic football field is a playing surface made of artificial materials like synthetic turf, sand and rubber infill, designed to imitate natural grass while providing durability and consistency. Reporting from Seine Bight Village I am Harry Arzu.