Crocker Farm Elementary School grant winner
By BEN STORROW Staff Writer, Amherst Bulletin
Published on April 30, 2010
Crocker Farm Elementary School was named the winner of the Rotary Club of Amherst's first-ever community grant last week, with the $25,000 gift going to help the school expand and upgrade its aging playground.
The Rotary gift comes at a welcome time for Crocker Farm. The school is due to receive 95 additional students in the coming school year, following the closure of Mark's Meadow Elementary School this year.
"The current playground does not meet the needs of current school population, yet alone 95 more students," said Crocker Farm Principal Mark Morris. Of the gift, he said, "It's tremendous. It will make the transition for all the new children that much easier with a new place to play in."
Rotary officials said the goal of the gift to make a substantial impact in the community by providing funding for nonprofit or civic institutions. Crocker Farm was selected from among 20 applications.
Greg Boisseau, president of the Amherst Rotary, said his organization was impressed by parents' fundraising efforts to build a new playground. He cited their "Brown Envelope Appeal" and dance-a-thon, both fundraising drives, as examples of their hard work.
"(The playground) will be an extremely visible project and will completed by the start of school," Boisseau said. "The economic timing of this was perfect. Funding for our schools was at a low, and it was a great opportunity to support our community and our students."
The Rotary gift brings the parents and school close to their goal of raising $43,000 for the new playground. The Crocker Farm Parent Guardian Organization has already raised $13,000 for the project. Combined with the Rotary gift, the PGO now has $38,000 on hand for the playground and is $5,000 short of bringing the project to fruition. The Rotary has said it will match the additional donations needed to complete the playground at a 5 to 1 ratio.
Becky Demling, co-chairwoman of the PGO, said the Rotary gift was going toward a good cause.
"The playground is old, 18 and half years old," Demling said, noting there is duct tape on the slide and pieces of the structure missing. The facility is already beyond capacity, she said, noting that more children use the playground than it was intended for.
"Without the Rotary, this project would not happen this year," Demling said. "For a community organization, to see what we've done, I'm just awestruck."
Anastasia Morton, also of the PGO, offered a similar assessment. She noted that she had recently moved from New York and had been drawn to Amherst by the community's support of the schools. That belief was confirmed by the Rotary gift, she said.
"Instead of just saying they're going to help, (Rotary) went out and did it."
The $25,000 was raised through the Amherst Rotary Auction fundraiser, which is held on Amherst Community Television each November. There had been some debate as to whether the Rotary should distribute multiple gifts in smaller amounts, said state Rep. Ellen Story, D-Amherst, herself a Rotarian. She said she felt the group could be more effective by making one, large gift.
"Instead of helping people limp along, we said, ‘Why not make a difference with a big gift? And that is what we did," Story said.
