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Field committee dredging for money from community members |
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Wednesday, 04 March 2009 |
BY ABBY FOX
Mike Feeney, chair of the school fields construction committee, and Vin Varrecchione, the high school’s athletic director, pitched their $50,000-$75,000 fundraising plan to build a concession stand for the new Carcieri multi-purpose field, last Wednesday at the Rotary Club.
“East Greenwich has quality schools and quality athletics,” Feeney said. “I know it’s going to impact everybody, but you’re in a great community and that’s what you should have.”
Feeney said the fields committee hoped at the start of the project that some of the $6 million reserved “was going to get us a concession stand,” but when the bid cost seemed too high, the committee decided it would get done by other means. “What we’ve done is scale back,” he said.
To “kick off” the fundraising, the committee has planned a cocktail reception at the Potowomut Country Club for April 25. People are asked to donate for a brick path and to donate money for supplies, such as goals and another scoreboard, but Feeney emphasized that the centerpiece of fundraising efforts is for the concession stand, “something everyone in the town can benefit from,” because it will have bathrooms and storage. The labor is being donated by Cranston trade school students, he said, but the fields committee still has to come up with money for the materials.
Feeney said the multi-purpose track and field coming to East Greenwich this fall is modeled after the beauteous turf field in North Smithfield. “If you’re going to do a $6 million project, do it right,” he said. The rest of the fields work is expected to be done in the fall of 2010.
Feeney’s hope is that if every family contributed $100 – and there are about 1,000 families in East Greenwich who have kids who play sports – it could make a big difference.
Afterward, Facilities Director Bob Wilmarth said a good-sized stand, some 2,000-3,000 square feet worth, was an item that “we had eliminated pretty much right after the bat, when we got our first estimates back. What we left was the underground utilities, electric and plumbing lines, so you don’t have to dig up later.”
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