I’m DFG Alexandre, and this is my debut blog post. When my grandmother passed away, we decided to sell her house, as none of the family was in need of a home. Before putting it on the market, my dad (DFG Rob) and I decided to do one last dig. Her late 1700s house has been heavily detected by us, so we didn’t expect to find much. However, we were wrong. I found what we thought was a Connecticut copper coin, one of the oldest coins in Connecticut, as it predates American currency. I was excited because it was so old, but it was in bad shape, and it was hard to make out the details of the coin, as it was rusting away.

Under further evaluation, the coin proved to be a Walking Liberty half dollar, a silver coin that is a respectable find but a relatively common one. I was initially disappointed that it was from the mid-1900s and not the early 1800s, as I had thought. But when my dad and I looked at it further, we realized that silver coins do not rust and decay. We compared the coin I found with a silver Walking Liberty coin and saw they were the same size. We now think that it was a counterfeit silver dollar. Making the coin out of a less precious metal would’ve saved money in making the coin, and it was probably silver plated originally to make it seem authentic. This find was also special to me, as it could have come out of my great-grandpa’s pocket as he walked that path to water his garden with a wagonful of milk jugs. I wondered if he knew it was counterfeit. Did he chuck it because it was fake, or did it just fall out? Despite its lack of monetary value, the coin certainly has sentimental value in my eyes.

This was a busy year for the idea that became Digging for Good. In addition to building our site, expanding into Instagram and Facebook and trying to learn video editing, we also took the time to both sponsor and coach a Little League Minor’s team. It started off with DFG’s Nicole designing the best banner we’ve seen at our field in some time. It drove traffic and some really exciting leads.

We went all out with DFG’s Rob managing DFG’s Curt, Andrew and Nicole coaching and DFG’s Zach and Alexandre dazzling on the diamond. Opening day started with a win, and the team really took off.

As the season went on, we kept winning, but—way more importantly—the kids were having fun. We saw kids pitch that had never pitched before… we saw the very first hits of young careers… we saw a team come together with parents cheering and being positive instead of the yelling and criticism which is all too pervasive at youth sporting events these days.

As the season wore on, remaining undefeated became the thing on everyone’s mind as we won our 11th, 12th and 13th games in a row. Finally, our team lost to our rivals in Middletown. But in the immortal words of Pete the Cat, “Did [we] cry? Goodness no! [We] kept walking along and singing [our] song”. Or we just ate watermelon.

Why did we celebrate? Because baseball is—and has been for over 150 years—fun. We win, we lose, we tie (umm, no we don’t; this isn’t soccer) and regardless, we should be having fun doing it. It’s a game. A great game, but a game nonetheless.

We closed out the season with another loss against one of our rival HK teams. They pitched their Ace for 5 innings. We pitched 9 kids, including 2 who had never pitched before. If you had looked closely, you would have never been able to tell from the smiles in our dugout that we were losing. To the Digging for Good family, the smiles matter more than the score. Being 13-2 and winning the league pennant will be forgotten soon, but the lessons taught and learned will remain for a lifetime.

Welcome to the very first Digging for Good blog post. Over the past couple of years, my family and friends began to share my life-long love for metal detecting. We all enjoy being outside… hiking, playing baseball, soccer and hockey, or going fishing. That love for being outdoors, combined with our passion for history and the desire to give back to our community has become Digging for Good.

The premise is simple… If you allow us to metal detect your property (that’s the being outside part), we will donate $75 to a charity on your behalf (that’s the giving back to the community part), and anything we find is yours to keep (that’s the passion for history part of Digging for Good).

We are NOT a charity and will never take a single penny from anyone for any reason. The charities we donate to are local, with one important exception in order to help the citizens of Ukraine impacted by the Russian Invasion. Before we come to dig, we will make a donation on your behalf and bring you a receipt.

A typical dig will last anywhere from 2-5 hours depending on what we find and the size of the area we are detecting. We usually bring 2-4 adults and 2-10 children… it’s quite an experience! How we approach digging depends on the property and where you want us to dig, but our goal is to make it appear as if we were never there. You may see a little dirt here or there but there will be no holes left when we leave. We will take pictures of the interesting finds before we leave, and we will take video for our YouTube channel while detecting. Rest assured we will not have any video or photos that would reveal your property or your identity unless you want to be a part of it.

We love to detect colonial farm fields and houses. Our goal is to find more than just old coins (Andrew and I do love the old silver though!). We aim to find relics of our Town’s history and maybe even items tied to the people who lived at your home long ago. Alexandre and Curt love to find anything related to the military, while Zack loves targets that are deep in the ground. Villette hopes to find some sort of jewelry and Nicole loves anything we deem an FOI (find of interest). She is also our best identifier of unknown objects.

Who knows what lies just below the surface of your property? Reach out and join us and we will find out together.

Rob from Digging for Good