Jamesville-DeWitt (WSYR-TV) -- It’s pretty much the standard for school districts throughout the area, except one of the biggest is still without a multi-use turf field. A group of parents in the Jamesville-DeWitt School District is taking on an aggressive effort to change that – without any help from the school budget.
“We’re not doing this for the football team, we’re not doing this for the lacrosse team, we’re doing it for the entire community – all the kids in the high school,” said Campaign Director Kevin Hulslander.
Wear and tear on the field and Central New York weather he says prevents it from being used year round. Hulslander is heading up a community effort, much like their neighbors at F-M did recently, to raise money privately for a turf field at J-D High School.
“We’re around a lot of businesses and a lot of those business owners live in the J-D district, so we’ve definitely got a group of names together. Everyone at this point, that we’ve asked, has said yes,” explained Co-Chair of the Fundraising Committee Amy Burns.
Still, it’s a daunting task. $100,000 is needed to be raised by January 1; $1.5-million by April 1.
"I would rather fund raise for one year than three and I'd rather get this to the community and kids as quick as possible,” Burns continued.
"We feel an intense, short, concise period of fundraising is the answer. It'll certainly get us a field a lot sooner,” added Hulslander.
The folks at J-D have had a lot of conversations with the people who raised the money at F-M to get their field done. They were able to basically get the project done over the summer. That’s exactly what the J-D committee is planning on. They hope to have the new field ready for the start of the next school year.
The project will also include a new track at the high school that would surround the turf field. Parents and boosters were able to raise $48,000 last year to save modified sports this past spring.
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