The "Friday Night Lights" project in Kerrobert is one we have followed closely here at West Central Online, but we recently got word of another expensive undertaking for one of the region's football fields at North West Central School in Plenty.
Trish McDonald is a key member of the Wildcats team when it comes to work behind the scenes, and she recently shared the terrific news that a new underground sprinkler system has been installed on the football field. It was bought in part to amazing community support. Something Plenty seems to be all about when it comes to their football team, who will kick of their season afterschool today against Clavet.
"We got our underground sprinkler system put in (this summer), and it's been a long time coming. Something we wanted to do, but it was a really costly project so we reached out to our community, and had fantastic support!"
The North West Central School Facebook page is currently thanking one donor a day, but McDonald wanted to thank their entire list of sponsors here.
"We had our Stranraer Elks and they donated $5000, Dodsland and District Credit Union also donated $5000. Caylee Trucks donated $5000, and Teine Energy donated $2500," said McDonald listing the key names she wanted to start with. McDonald continued, "Our junior football team is a community team, and they donated $2000. The Dodsland Lions donated $2000. DC Agro donated $1000. Max Ag Consulting was $1000, MC Enterprises donated $1000. Taurus Ag donated $1000, Ace Irrigation donated $500, and then G3 in Plenty donated $500."
Every donation is meaningful, but it is especially great to see the school itself getting involved. Not only did the junior team stroke a cheque, the most recent graduating class decided to dish out some money.
"Just the other day we had our graduation class from 2022 reach out, and they donated $1250. We were very close to covering the entire cost of the project with just those community donors, so we're pretty pumped."
The project was originally set to cost around $30,000 total, but things ended up closer to $40,000. The original amount was already covered, and as they split the difference, they have the community to thank for making fundraising for the football team such a breeze. As a perfect example, an after-the-interview donation of $1000 came in from Weese Electric as McDonald raced to share the news in an email.
"We always just have incredible community support, for our school and our football team. Community is great, so we are really appreciative"
Community is even the theme when it comes to the team's coaches, but that will change a bit this year as McDonald was happy to share that for the first time in a long time they have a staff member on board to help out on the sidelines, and also mentioned that Dave Stevens will be the new head coach after longtime coach Jason Kelley stepped down following many years as the team's leader.
Football season is officially here in West Central High school football kicked off yesterday in West Central. Rosetown opened up against Biggar on the road with a 38-16 win, and Kerrobert travelled to Unity in what ended up a tight 37-36 victory for the Rebels as Kerrobert gets ready for the grand reveal of their Friday Night Lights project coming up on September 16th.
Two more local football games are set for tonight, as mentioned the Plenty Wildcats play their first game of the year at home against Clavet at 4:00, and the Kindersley Kobras will be heading to Macklin for an 8:00 pm kickoff as those teams get their season started under the lights.
Tue, Apr 16, 7:00 PM
