Photos courtesy of Coventry Log Homes
Coventry Log Homes treats its community as it treats its customers — it sees a need and it fills it. And it goes above and beyond.
In 2013, a local school reached out to the New-Hampshire-based log home provider via a connection they had to the company. The school’s baseball field was in desperate need of new dugouts, and the team thought it would be pretty cool to if they were built with logs. The news filtered up to Coventry’s vice president Mark Elliott, who was happy to oblige.
“We actually pre-built those two dugouts, which were full-log, 6-by-8 eastern white pine with a D-shaped profile, in our mill,” Mark says. “Then we shipped them on a trailer to the site, which is only five miles from our office, and set them into place.
“As you can imagine, once a visiting team would come to play, they would take one look at these dugouts and wanted them for their teams too,” Mark continues with a chuckle. “They wanted to know where they came from, and when they found out that we donated them, we got many requests as to whether we’d consider donating dugouts to their school or park.”
The philanthropic company was happy to contribute. “We are the second largest employer in the area, after the local Walmart. As a result, we have a lot of connections to this community and we believe in giving back to it,” Mark says. “We donate two to three sets of dugouts each year; however, we no longer assemble them in our plant. We ship the package materials to the site and encourage the team, parents and others to work together to build it. It gives them ownership of the project and encourages them to come together as a community.”
Like any log structure, after a few years of use and weather exposure, they need to be re-stained and sealed. Coventry helps with that too. “We’ll donate the stain and the people in the community will get together on a weekend and maintain the logs to keep them in good condition,” he says.
To date, the company has donated close to 30 sets of baseball dugouts, in addition to small structures used as concession stands, equipment buildings surrounding the field and even a bandstand at a nearby park — all built with quality logs that likely would make the grade for residential housing.
Coventry is a worldwide provider of log homes, with houses in all 50 states, most Canadian provinces and even as far away as Australia and Japan. So why go through all this effort for a few schools and local parks? Mark’s answer is simple: “It’s fun. I love to be at an event like the annual summer fair and have people say to me that their kids got to play in those ballfields and loved the dugouts.
“As a company, we have been very blessed in this industry,” Mark continues. “There’s an adage that says, ‘To whom much is given, much is required.’” But it’s clear that giving back is not an obligation for the people at Coventry Log Homes, it’s a pleasure.
