Ikea makeover of John Burroughs’ baseball concession stand scores with boosters
As a new booster parent for John Burroughs High Indians’ frosh baseball team this season, Hilde Garcia made it her goal to ensure her son, his teammates and the community enjoyed their time at their home field.
While other parents were busy making improvements to the field itself, Garcia, a fourth-grade, dual-immersion language teacher at Walt Disney Elementary, spent the off-season and the beginning of this season giving the ballfield’s concession stand a makeover.
Garcia was at the facility Wednesday afternoon tidying the interior of the stand. She is hoping to have all the improvements completed and ready by March 21.
“What I really want is to be sitting here [at the order window of the concession stand] watching my kid at home plate hit a home run so that I can jump up and down and cry,” Garcia said.
The concession stand, in its former life a shipping container, sits directly behind the backstop and was recently given a fresh coat of paint to match the Indians’ team colors. A new awning was also installed, which replaced the sheets of corrugated steel panels that were previously used for shade.
The interior of the concession stand was completely redone with new cabinets featuring tiny baseball replicas as knobs, a functioning sink and upgraded countertops.
Navigating through the stand before the makeover required having to squeeze through tight spaces and dodging obstacles due to an abundance of items lying around and the use of mismatching cabinets that varied in size, Garcia said.
“There were five different cabinets and nothing was designed properly,” she said.
Now that most of the upgrades are completed, the booster mom compared the makeover to winning the lottery, and she would have missed out on the jackpot if it wasn’t for the help from Ikea Burbank and her tireless effort to get their attention.
Garcia started the makeover endeavor at the beginning of the school year. Her son, freshman Sam Krol, had just made the cut for the Indians’ freshman roster and she noticed that the concession stand had seen better days and deserved some love.
She created a floor plan, measured the space and sifted through an Ikea catalog, where she found a cabinet system that would work for her budget, which was about $1,800.
Ikea Burbank has a track record of assisting schools within Burbank Unified with their makeover needs — including installing a new kitchen at Luther Burbank Middle School, among other projects.
“I thought maybe they would donate some stuff half off, as-is or give us a donation in-kind and then we [the booster parents] would take care of the rest,” Garcia said.
She wrote a proposal for the project and instead of emailing or mailing it, she went to the administrative office at Ikea Burbank in October and handed the documents to the assistant of Mary Ann Barroso-Castanon, the store’s loyalty manager.
“I got back to my car and told myself, ‘Let’s see what happens,’” Garcia recalled.
There was no immediate response back, so Garcia sent follow-up emails, notes and even team merchandise to Barroso-Castanon to convince her to consider the project.
However, Barroso-Castanon was in contact with Garcia, or at least she thought she was. The Ikea employee had sent emails, but Garcia said they ended up in her spam folder.
Barroso-Castanon also called Garcia’s phone, but the booster mom didn’t pick up because she thought it was a telemarketer.
“After being relentless and trying to get in touch with her for four months, I missed all her responses back,” Garcia said while laughing.
In her last note, Garcia asked Barroso-Castanon to meet her at the ball field during the winter break.
Garcia showed up at the stand at 11 a.m. the day they were supposed to meet, but no one else was there. Then 15 minutes later, people wearing yellow shirts and blue stripes arrived — it was Barroso-Castanon and her staff.
Barroso-Castanon, who was also at the Burroughs campus with Garcia on Wednesday, said Ikea has a limited budget each year to work on a community project. After reviewing Garcia’s proposal, she decided the concession stand makeover would be the store’s big community contribution for the year.
The project could have been simple, and Ikea could have provided the specific lower-end cabinets that Garcia had asked for, but Barroso-Castanon opted to use the retailer’s pricier products as well as donated tables and chairs where attendees can sit and watch a game while eating a snack.
On top of that, Ikea employees were made in charge of the design and installation of all the fixtures.
The project went from an estimated $1,800 to about $13,000 that was donated to John Burroughs, which also happens to be Barroso-Castanon’s alma mater.
“On an Ikea level, we really want to build these relationships with our community partners,” Barroso-Castanon said. “On a personal level, it feels really good to give back to the community, especially when it’s a school that I went to.”
While there are a few loose ends that need to be tied, Garcia said the experience of working with Ikea will be one she will never forgets, and in the process she made a new friend in Barroso-Castanon.
