OLD SAYBROOK, Conn. (WTNH) — Brick by brick John Ellis built the Connecticut Cancer Foundation from the ground up.

The Connecticut native and former Major League Baseball player created the nonprofit to help provide economic assistance and financial aid to cancer patients and their families.

Jane Ellis, the foundation’s executive director, said it’s helped thousands of cancer patients since its founding in 1987.

“We’ve raised over $6 million for thousands and thousands.. over 7,000 cancer patients,” she said.

The nonprofit’s headquarters currently resides on North Main Street in Old Saybrook. Outside sits a baseball diamond-shaped patio that features bricks engraved with names of those battling or have lost their cancer battle.

It has become special to the foundation and the people it’s helped; however, the diamond is causing some strikes against the nonprofit.

“The basis is the baseball diamond that was donated was not on the original site plan,” Ellis explained. “It was supposed to be grass.”

Ellis said a local landscaping company donated $35,000 in materials and labor to install the diamond. However, the diamond was not in the original site plan and did not meet the zoning commission’s regulations.

“They do not consider it landscaping, that’s part of the problem. So, grass is landscaping, pavers are not.”

So, the foundation asked for a special exception but it was denied. After the denial, Ellis said she went to the Zoning Board of Appeals and got approval. However, the town’s zoning commission said the board did not have the authority to give the approval.

“Now the town, the zoning commission, is suing their own board of appeals and a charity for pavers,” Ellis said. She said the commission is telling them to dig the bricks up and remove them.

Ellis said there have been missteps along the way but said they were corrected. The foundation, according to Ellis, recently applied to the zoning commission for a special exception. Again, it was a swing and a miss.

However, Ellis said she’s still hopeful the groups will come to an agreement before going to court and said she vows to keep fighting for the cancer patients.

“I am not afraid of a little fight, and this is minor to me compared to the families that I see all the time and the children battling cancer. This is ridiculous, and I feel sorry for these people who voted no. I really do… And I was really hopeful that the five people sitting on that commission…if they had ever experienced cancer, or knows someone who has gone through this battle, that I didn’t understand how they could not vote to approve. I really was so disheartened when they decided 4-1 to deny.”