A softball tournament in memory of a young man who took his own life earlier this year is being held this weekend in St. John’s and a local counselling service is seeing the benefit of the funds raised.

The Ben Penney Memorial Softball Tournament gets underway this evening at Mundy Pond Park.

Ben’s uncle, Glenn Spurgeon, says Ben was a kind and generous young man who touched a lot of lives.

Spurgeon calls Mundy Pond a remarkable community that looks after each other and the tournament is just another manifestation of that community spirit.

He says the tournament was the idea of firefighter Paul McIvoy.

Spurgeon says funds raised during the tournament and a bike auction will go to Ruah, a non-profit counselling service.

“Where Ben was such a vibrant kid with bikes and wheels and stuff, he had a bunch of bikes and stuff in his house and he used to get little bikes to rebuild them and stuff like that, so (his parents) took one of his bikes and said ‘let’s put it up on auction.'” He says they figured they’d raise $1,500 or $2,000 dollars on tickets, but through some of Ben’s friends, they sold tickets and “we’re going to be happy to donate $10,000 tomorrow.”