|Nate Stone, GNG Little League|
Through our working group of concerned New Gloucester residents and our league’s efforts, we have submitted a grant application to the Harold Alfond Foundation. We hope it will result in a matching grant to help us reach our fundraising goals. We have a couple more grant applications in the works that we expect to submit shortly as well. Our expectation is that we’ll hear back from major funders in 60-90 days as to their initial interest in our project. It may take more time to get final numbers on their level of support.
Regarding the Bennett site itself, Sargent Corp brought in a tremendous amount of material during the fall and the site is closer to viable for field construction than ever before. A quote from their engineers shows that 32,000 yards of fill are needed to bring the entire site to an acceptable grade above the waterline. Over the past few years, that number has gone from 106,000 down to 32,000, so patience has had significant reward there. The current site would probably have enough dry land for two fields and parking. Ideally, we’d like to get to three field sites which may be possible soon. A more formal survey will be required as we get closer to our goals to determine what will actually fit.
Even with the land approaching levels needed for construction, the remaining costs to prepare fields at Bennett which include bringing in loam for grass, leveling the existing material, drainage engineering, and securing the site, create over $400,000 in additional costs. We are hoping that the funders will be receptive to our requests for matching grants. If we can get a few to say yes to matching our efforts, we hope that supporters of preserving the Intervale land, businesses in town, and our league’s supporters can come together to raise the needed funds to produce the desired result: restoring Bennett to a viable recreation area in NG and preserving the rustic character of the Intervale area.
While we wait, we’ll work on proposing fundraising options that will be appealing to as many folks as possible and will seek to raise the funds needed to be ready to act when the matching funds come through. These efforts should begin shortly and we’ll have more to announce in the coming months.
