Thanks to a Rotary grant, a baseball complex in Western Branch that serves a number of North Suffolk families will be renovated for the first time since its inception.

The Rotary Club of Churchland is giving $22,500 toward renovating the Western Branch Pony League fields behind Chittum Elementary School, said member Keith Horton.

Improvements to the complex used by Western Branch Athletic Club will include extensive clubhouse renovations, fill dirt and crush-and-run to overcome flooding, improved batting cages, picnic tables and minor electrical work.

Jason Tone, its president, said the relatively small amount of money the athletic club is able to set aside each year for capital improvements, at the Dock Landing Road complex and other facilities off Tyre Neck Road, has never been enough to cover every need.

“There’s so much to be done, often our priority is to get fields ready, get them safe, and that’s as much money as we have,” he said.

“To have the Rotary club come in and support things that have been on our list for decades is great.”

Horton said the initiative is part of an effort by the Rotary club to diversify the causes it supports. “We encouraged new members to help identify” different community needs, he said.

A project co-chair, Charles Powers, played ball at facility as a youngster, said Mark Sidwell, president of the Rotary Club of Churchland.

Members also “know a bunch of people in the community (whose) kids play baseball here,” Sidwell added. “I talk to people over in Suffolk, off Shoulders Hill Road, and their kids play here.”

Sidwell said it’s the most ambitious project the Rotary club has undertaken since he joined it in 2008.

Western Branch Athletic Club serves about 600 children aged 4 to 14, about 55 of which live in North Suffolk, Tone said, adding, “We are right at the nexus” of North Suffolk, Chesapeake and Portsmouth.

Horton said the Rotary club is also appealing for volunteer hours or gifts in kind toward the project, which it hopes to finish by April 4, when the athletic club’s spring season begins.

John Bilbo, its other co-chair, said the project would make a big difference. “We’ll buy them a nice new grill for the concession stand,” he said. “Lots of people from the community have come and donated stuff here and there.”