A special meeting of the Vandalia School Board was held on Thursday night as the new “Forging Our Future” campaign to improve athletic facilities was unveiled by the project committee and Vandalia Athletic Director Jason Clay. Clay gave a presentation outlining the three-part project that encompasses three major areas of upgrades.
The first project is the acquisition and buildout of the building across from Vandalia High School that is currently under contract and will become the new athletic conditioning facility and wrestling room under the first project. The building would include a new wrestling room big enough to include two full-size competition mats, locker rooms, a large weight room with small turf workout area, a cardio area, a golf simulator and a couple athletic offices. The first project would be an estimated cost of $1.5 million.
The second project includes the addition of turf to the football field, renovation of the football concessions building that will host areas for both FFA and Vandalia Sports Boosters, an athletic training room, restrooms and storage and lastly the replacement of the football field lights and home side bleachers. The second project would be at a total cost of $2.6 million ($1.2 for turf, $650,00 for the concessions building and $750,000 for lights and bleachers).
The third project as part of the improvement plan would be the demolition of the current tennis courts and the addition of four new tennis courts, two pickleball courts and a shaded gathering area for tennis spectators. That project comes at a cost of $650,000.
Overall the three projects making up the improvement plan comes at a total cost of $4.75 million that the committee looks to try and raise in the next three years. The committee has come up with six donor levels as they seek to raise the funds through donations and will also be applying for grants to try and obtain funds for the improvement campaign. On an information sheet handed out during the meeting Thursday night, it does not that the 1% facility sales tax that is currently collected in the county cannot be used towards athletic facility upgrades, but instead can only be put towards what the information states are critical project needs for the district. After a presentation of the project and fundraising campaign, Clay says the Forging Our Future drive has been something worked on for a few years now and it is exciting to put it into motion.
As Clay mentioned, a donation of $100,000 was received during the meeting from Bob and Susan Culbertson to kickstart the fundraising drive and Culbertson spoke about being proud to be able to give back to something he and his wife take a lot of pride in as a former Vandal athlete and Vandalia teacher.
After the unveiling of the fundraising campaign, Clay and Culbertson both spoke of the wide range of benefits for the community, students and athletes that will come of such a campaign, and we will hear from both Clay and Culbertson about that more tomorrow.
In the meantime, to find out more information on the “Forging Our Future” campaign and find out how you can donate, visit www.vandaliaone.com/forging-our-future
