Help Joey Lara Open a New Indoor Training Facility

Hello everyone! I am Joey Lara, born and raised in the city of Chicago. All my life, I have been around sports, more specifically baseball. I have grown up going to Cubs games, playing my youth summer baseball at Hamlin Park, and attending Lake View High School. Since 2021, I have been coaching at Lake View High School and giving lessons to individual clients. My goal is to share my own knowledge and expertise with all players that want to improve themselves and gain the potential to play at the next level.

I started my business in 2023 with the name JWL Baseball, I always had the intention to go bigger and this year I want to finally expand. Over the years, my client base has grown and every client has shown great amounts of improvements. I only want to continue to help more athletes reach their potential so I am here to fundraise to open my own indoor baseball and softball training facility! Growing up in Chicago has given me so much and now I want to give back to help as many people here as I can! We would love to take over a space we found in Ravenswood and open this fall! Our goal is to raise $50,000 by the end of October and we can open this year! We have almost everything we need to open up, but now WE NEED YOUR HELP to fund and show that the community needs a new indoor space for everyone to use! The initial investment will cover start-up business costs, equipment, and operational costs!

In the facility we will have multiple batting cages to rent by half hour/hour. There will be equipment to use like pitching machines, baseballs, mounds, tees, and others to use while renting out a cage at no additional cost. Each donation amount has its own incentive for use in the facility! There are incentives for discounted lessons from me, and discounted hours to rent a cage with, the bigger the donation the bigger the savings! We are also offering monthly memberships and the first 100 people to sign up will get $50 off the original price for life!

For a little more about me as a player, I went to Lake View where I won team MVP my senior year along with making the CPS Senior All-Star team. After high school, I went on to play college at South Suburban College in 2017, and at Kentucky Wesleyan College from 2018-2019. My senior year of college I finished with a 1.3 ERA, 29ks in 28 innings pitched in relief, and 0 home runs given up. I decided to continue my playing career after college to tryout for professional teams. From 2020-2021, I played in the Empire League where in 2021 I was named the starting pitcher of the All-Star Team. Soon after the All-Star break, I had my contract purchased by the York Revolution of the Atlantic League where I finished the rest of the 2021 season there. In 2022, I played one more year of professional baseball for the Billings Mustangs of the Pioneer League.