Bliss Family Donates Bliss Fields to Rehoboth Youth Soccer Club

The Rehoboth Youth Soccer Club has been playing at Bliss Fields for years, and now they can call the fields their own because the Bliss family has generously granted the 13+ acre parcel of land to the Soccer Club.

The Club has been leasing the land, located on the corner of Tremont Street and Fairview Avenue, since 1998.

Hundred of boys and girls, ages 4 to 16, play soccer at Bliss Fields each fall.

“I’m so grateful and honored and proud to be part of an organization that serves the kids of our community. The generous gift of the Bliss family will serve the community for years to come,” said Kathy Saleeba, President of the Rehoboth Youth Soccer Club.

The grant of the property culminates a long-term relationship that the Club has had with David and Kent Bliss and the entire Bliss family

“We’re proud to be able to do this for the organization and the children of Rehoboth,” said David Bliss.

The Bliss family of Attleboro is the former owner of Bliss Bros. Dairy, Inc. on Park Street.

In the spring of 1998, the Rehoboth Youth Soccer League approached Bliss Bros. Dairy to explore a lease of the land on its current site to develop a complete soccer complex.

Since that time, the Club has installed four approximately 70-by-110-yard irrigated soccer fields, with parking for over 200 cars and a clubhouse for meeting space, equipment storage and a concession stand and named the facility the “Bliss Soccer Fields.”

Most people in the area are familiar with the fields and many have had children and/or grandchildren who played there.

Sometimes there are ten matches going on at once at the field.

“We can have 500 kids here playing soccer from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on a Saturday morning,” said David Gilmore, Treasurer of the Club.

The Club also is affiliated with the Dighton-Rehoboth Strikers, the competitive town travel youth soccer program and has granted them use of the fields in the spring. The Club has also opened its fields for practices and home games for the Dighton-Rehoboth High School soccer teams during their fall season.

The Bliss’ grant not only benefits the children of Rehoboth, it also helps preserve 13 acres as open space, preventing commercial and residential development.

“The grant of the land to the Club ensures that the Club has a permanent home and that the land will maintain within its current use for active outdoor recreational soccer activities for the youth of Rehoboth,” Gilmore said.

The land has been in the Bliss family for more than 70 years.

Kent Bliss’ father, Thomas Bliss, Sr., purchased the property for the company in the 1930’s. It was a potato farm owned by Jim Grove.

According to Kent Bliss, Grove had about 10 cows that he was milking at that time.

Bliss turned it into a dairy farm operation to supply milk to the Park Street plant.

“When we were milking cows here, we were milking 48 cows,” Kent Bliss said.

Ancestors of the Bliss family were among the founders of Rehoboth. They arrived in Rehoboth in the mid-1600s when Jonathan Bliss emigrated from England and settled on property on Agricultural Ave. which continues to be owned by the family. Generations of the Bliss family farmed the land through the late 1900’s.

The Rehoboth Youth Soccer Club first played on school grounds at the campus of Beckwith Middle School and Palmer River Elementary School. However, according to Gilmore, the fields were not irrigated and were shared with baseball, softball and other sports. In 1998, the Palmer River School building project made the fields unavailable and the club had to find another site to play.

For the 1998 season, RYSC worked with town officials to secure a single 150' by 480' field on which to house the program in the back of Rehoboth Town Hall. However, the field could not be used for the long term because it had no irrigation, was limited in playing size and parking was inadequate for program growth. In addition, the cost of improving the site was deemed prohibitive by the club. That is when the club approached the Bliss family about using their fields.

The Rehoboth Youth Soccer Club is a 501(c)(3) private non-profit and was incorporated in 1997 and is run by a group of volunteer Board members. The purpose of the Club is to promote a soccer program in the town of Rehoboth in which children can develop a positive self-image, confidence and other affirmative character traits through participation in soccer. For more information, visit www.rysc.net.