With spring officially here, maybe there’s no better way to spend spring break for the Stern family of Libertyville than to stay inside to prepare for the great outdoors of opening day youth baseball.
On Monday, March 24, Brian and Nicole Stern, franchise owners of Fresh Coat Painters of Vernon Hills, and their children Bradley, 9, a third-grader, and Nora, 6, a kindergartner, used their helping hands instead of a catcher’s mitt to buff the interior of The Den (901 E. Orchard St. Unit E) in Mundelein.
While the youngest member of the Stern family (Brock, 2) couldn’t be there to safely volunteer to remove errant spider webs and dust bunnies, the four did their part to jumpstart a several-day spring cleaning paint project.
The home run for the Sterns and the community will ultimately be to transform the inside training location of the tenant, Vernon Hills Cougars Community Baseball and Softball (VHCBS) program. See https://www.vhcbs.org/home.
As part of the Fresh Coat Cares initiative (which helps to cover labor costs and more), the Sterns are donating their time and resources to repaint the facility interior, to help ensure a better training experience for young athletes in the community.
VHCBS, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, provides baseball and softball programs for local youth. With winter training and unpredictable outdoor conditions, The Den serves as an interior space for Lake County athletes to practice year-round.
The project included painting formerly white interior tall walls with gray so it would be better to see balls while training.
Bradley, who plays VHCBS baseball and is in his third season year, agreed the dominant gray painted walls will help players, “see the ball better.
“This is my spring break project,” Bradley added.
Bradley’s team kicks off the season on April 25 against the Libertyville Wildcats 9U baseball team.
“We’ve been training here for a couple of years,” said Bradley’s father, Brian Stern, also a VHCBS board member and head coach of the 9U travel baseball team.
“In the winter, obviously, this (The Den) lets us get some baseball in when it’s freezing cold out in Chicago,” Brian Stern said.
VHCBS, “wanted to brighten it up in here, but also create a better training experience for the young athletes,” Stern added.
Bradley’s father agreed the gray walls were a priority.
“For baseball, you’re playing with a white baseball and it’s coming off of a white wall, so that’s a little hard to see the ball,” Brian Stern said. “Also, gray kind of goes with our color scheme.”
The Cougars team colors are royal blue, white and gray. Royal blue will be used for bright painting accents.
Other Lake County youth groups, such as lacrosse teams and Lake Zurich softball, use The Den. The coach estimated that approximately 250 youth athletes train there.
“It’s put to good use,” Brian Stern added about The Den. “It’s full all the time in the afternoons.”
Also lending painting expertise over spring break were David Sanchez of Antioch, the company’s project manager with over 15 years of experience in the industry, and William Vega of Zion, lead painter with more than a decade in the professional painting field.
While the Fresh Coat Cares initiative helped to make the several-thousand-dollar value makeover possible, in-kind support also came from project partners Rust-Oleum of Vernon Hills and Sherwin-Williams paint store of Libertyville.
“It’s our community so we love giving back,” said Nicole Stern, who went to school for interior design and is the company’s office manager and color/design specialist.
Newer to Fresh Coat as a franchisee, Brian Stern said, “Honestly, this is our first Fresh Coat Cares initiative, so we look forward to the next one and the next one.
“There are a lot of ideas out there and those that are looking to do a project but may not have the funds to do it, we encourage them to reach out,” said Brian Stern, who listed schools or libraries as possible donor recipients or, “whatever that might be. It’s always something we’ll consider, especially if it involves taking care of the youth in the community.”
To learn more about Fresh Coat Painters of Vernon Hills, visit https://freshcoatpainters.com/locations/vernon-hills/.
Also see https://1851franchise.com/storypage/preview/2728847.
Karie Angell Luc is a freelancer for Pioneer Press.
