Ground-breaking set for new classrooms

A golden shovel will be put to work when school officials and volunteers host an official ground-breaking ceremony for four new elementary school classrooms on Wednesday, July 9 at 5:30 p.m.

Volunteers are key to the project, which would cost $400,000 if put out to bid. Instead, the four classrooms will be added to the west wing of the school toward the parking lot primarily with volunteer labor and donated materials.

School Superintendent Steve Swisher said the short ground-breaking ceremony will be followed at 6 p.m. by a meeting of those interested in working on a short, intense phone campaign to raise about $85,000.

These funds will still be needed to purchase materials such as "metal roofing, perhaps some trusses, fixtures and other materials" that were not donated, Swisher said.

The fund raising campaign is expected to last only one week. Volunteers on phones will follow up a pre-mailing, Swisher said.

Of the $85,000, Swisher said $18,000 has already been raised. Of that amount, $5,000 came as a single donation, with the teachers' Sisters Education Association donating another $1,000. The rest has come in as donations of less than $500, Swisher said.

The target date for completion of the school has been September 6.

"There is a ways to go, but so far we have hit all our target dates, " Superintendent Swisher said.