Monson Fruit Company owners and employees stepped up recently to donate time and money to build a landscape feature at the McGonagle Park little league fields.

Monson Fruit Company co-owner, Eric Monson, said the feature was fashioned after some landscape features the company put beside the Monson Fruit warehouses last spring.

“Dick Graf saw it and thought it was pretty impressive, and asked if we could do something similar at the baseball field,” Monson said.

Monson Fruit paid for the feature and employees used their expertise to put the landscape feature together during their regular workday. A couple of employees worked on a Saturday to finish the job, he said.

 “We were trying to make something low maintenance that would last a long time, and keep it as simple as possible,” he said. “With more detail there’s more maintenance.”

 “We’re trying to do our part to give back to the community that has done a lot of good things for us,” Monson said.

Monson said the Selah Little League program is one of the best in the state.

“I think it makes the kids feel important to play with the nice fields,” he said.

One of the four fields at the four-year-old baseball complex is named Monson Field, and Monson has three sons who have been involved with Little League.

Monson is also the president of the Selah Little League.

“Little League is a great program for kids,” he said. “It’s not just baseball, but it’s life lessons. Winning and losing and having fun is what we’re all about.”

“At the end of the day, the kids will have good memories from their youth.”

But it hasn’t been just one or two people he said. More than 100 people have contributed time and resources to make the fields what they are today.

The Little League fields were built with the idea that the program would perpetuate itself over the years.