The community of Dresden has rallied behind the sports field project at their high school and the pace of fundraising is going faster than the organizers ever expected.
“We’ve had tremendous representation from our community with all of our collaborative members coming and supporting,” said Ian Avery, teacher at Lambton-Kent Composite School and a coordinator with the Dresden Community Development Association. “It’s a true representation of what the Dresden, Bothwell, and Thamesville community is all about. We’re above where we expected to be.”
Avery said the overall goal for the project is $540,000, and they are alread inching close to the $400,000 mark.
“Our phase one goal is $395,000 and now we can safely say we are at that point, now we can go to the school board, and do surveys, there is a lot of paper work to be done and surveying to be done… but our fundraising continues,” he said. “We didn’t quite think that we would be where we are now, but we’re looking at doing all three phases together. We’re ahead of where we wanted to be and we see the immediate benefits of doing the entire project at once and also potential cost savings of only ripping up the property once, other than three times.”
Many of the community partners gathering at LKCS today for a series of presentations.
“One was to recognize the huge support of the community and the Municipality of Chatham-Kent,” Avery said. “The first to come forward when we had a vision to do this project was the school board, they said yes we’re in and provided us with $50,000 in seed money. We took that to the Municipality of Chatham-Kent with our proposal and we said would you be interested in partnering with us with this project. A lot of credit to Joe Faas and the councillors at Chatham-Kent… they voted unanimously in support of 25 per cent of the project. It was the same thing provided for the project at CKSS.”
Avery added: “From that point we said we were going to try and tackle the Ontario Trillium Foundation. It is quite a process. It was not awarded to the school but to the DCDA and we had to show a strength in our community. Driving around in my Poniac Vibe, we went around to the various collaborative members… the Kinsmen, Minor Ball, Rotary, IODE, the Hort. Society… there is eight of them. They were all on board and said ‘what can we do.'”
Avery said not only were the partners on board “but they were willing to sign documents saying yes we are forming this collaborative group and we want to move forward with you to the Trillium application.
“We had our interview with Trillium and we demonstrated the strength in our community. They were all for it and that was the huge award of the $114,000,” he said.
Avery said North Kent Mutual has stepped forward with $50,000 in matching dollars.
“We have just over $40,000 in community and business donations,” he said. “We hope to reach that $50,000 mark tonight, we have a function at the Legion to celebrate all of this today.”
Avery said the project will benefit the entire community, in Dresden and beyond.
“We have a beautiful back campus that is not developed,” he said. “Having played sports and ran track and soccer… I think we wanted something better. You see the elementary schools and there is a need for this with the Dresden Legion track program, our Minor Soccer program for a small community is thriving and it’s growing and we need to accommodate for that. Minor Baseball is growing.
Avery added: “In a time knowing we have declining enrollment and so forth, our minor sports numbers are increasing. We see a need for this. There are many different partnerships, even the Defiance Running Club from Wallaceburg that has spilled over into the elementary schools.
Avery said the project helps create opportunities for adults as well as youth.
“It’s a way of retaining the students we have and attracting more, and more people to settle in our community,” he said. “It’s not just a Dresden thing, we draw from Bothwell, Thamesville, Florence, Tupperville, it’s a big drawing area. That is who we are serving not just the school itself.”
Watch for more news about the project after the event at the Dresden Legion this evening.
Here are some photos from the event:
