Boynton Beach, Fla. Little League team has a brand new facility thanks to Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.
With its signature element of surprise, the reality TV show “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” brought
back the joy to Mudville for the Boynton Beach, Fla. Little League.
Approximately four months after Hurricane Wilma ripped into Boynton Beach's Little League Park, causing an
estimated $1 million in damage, nearly 1,000 people from the show's production crew and volunteers completely
renovated the park, including a new Musco lighting system.
ABC's Emmy award winning show's design team added to their normal Sunday night schedule with a month's worth of special Thursday night
episodes. Airing for four weeks the “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition — After the Storm” specials highlighted four of the
Gulf Coast states hit hardest by last year's hurricanes. The design team traveled to Mississippi, Florida, Louisiana, and Texas.
Producers chose the Boynton Beach project in part because of the community spirit displayed, and the fact that they could help 40,000 people.
This is the first ballfield the show has renovated, since they typically focus on family homes.
Every facet of the facility, including bleachers, fencing, irrigation, clubhouse, concession stands, and lighting needed to be replaced.
Musco's Light·Structure Green™ systems replaced the existing, damaged poles.
Musco helps make it happen
Because the show typically focuses on domestic dwellings, producers quickly realized they needed help with “putting things 60 to 70 feet in
the air,” Musco President Joe Crookham said.
Besides setting the lighting systems in place, the Musco Team helped mount the new scoreboard, provided aerial access to mount brackets for
closed-circuit cameras, and fabricated frames for plasma tvs mounted above the fields.
In addition, the night before the “reveal” to the league, producers asked Musco's help mounting signs around the scoreboards.
“That's what we do, so we made a run to Home Depot around 10:00 that night. The next day the signs were in place,” Jeff McNulty,
Musco Field Operations Director, recalled.
Lights add “baseball feel” to unveiling ceremony
Despite the seven-day timeframe to complete this monster project and rainy conditions that shortened the timeframe even further, the
renovation was completed in time for the reveal.
When the day arrived to let the children of Boynton Beach in on the secret, Musco was privileged to be there as well. “Because there
were so many people, and we had a large area to cover, we needed high-powered cameras for the reveal,” said Shana Kemp, Segment Producer.
“We would not have been able to do a night reveal without Musco's help,” she added. The field lights, plus mobile trucks, provided high
enough light levels for the field, the surrounding area where the crowd gathered, and for the television broadcast.
“The night reveal was much more effective,” Kemp said. “We really got the baseball feel. The results were amazing,” she concluded.
Diane Korman, Coordinating Producer for Extreme Makeover Home Edition: After the Storm, commented, “We cannot express how much we appreciate
the hard work and giving spirit of Musco and their employees who stepped up to help re-build the Gulf.”
The Musco Team was proud to join with this program that asks “What can I do to help?”
Learn more about other events lighted by Musco.
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