Swim team continues fundraising

Swim team continues fundraising for bubble

Jeremy Nash news-herald.net

Students, coaches and parents involved with Lenoir City High School’s swim team are raising funds to help match the city’s portion for a new insulated bubble at the Claire Donahue Aquatic Center.

The team utilizes the covered pool each winter for practices and meets.

“I want to say we’ve raised, between actual money and pledges, somewhere in the neighborhood of $15,000 and we need $53,000,” Robert Scheffer, former co-manager for the swim team, said.

Scheffer has since stepped down from leading the fundraising charge after his daughter, Rachel Scheffer, graduated earlier this year. Austin and Jessie DeRose have taken over.

The old bubble needed replacement due to wear and tear.

“If we can raise the $53,000, as soon as we’re able to do that, the mayor’s promised he would put in the other $53,000 and we could purchase the bubble. That may take until next year,” Scheffer said. “I do know that we’ve looked at pool time all around and it is very scarce and very expensive, so right now it looks like they may be having to practice over in Maryville on two nights a week and then on Saturday. Two nights during the week would be at like 8 or 9 o’clock at night. It’s not conducive to kids trying to succeed in sports and academics.”

Fundraising has largely come from personal donations, Austin DeRose said.

“We have a long way to go,” he said. “I don’t know that we’ve been all that successful in keeping the community aware of what’s going on. We tell as many people as we can and we hear a lot of feedback, ‘Oh, we had no idea this was going on,’ so a lot of people still are not aware.”

He worries if money isn’t raised to help fund the match, it could lead to fewer students participating.

“We may have parents or families drop out of the swim team because they can’t get their kids to practice somewhere else at times in the evening,” he said. “... Honestly, realistically, we probably won’t have much of a team if one at all.”

Lenoir City Mayor Tony Aikens said the city would maintain its promise.

“Well, I think it’s important to the kids for one thing, obviously, and it shows that the parents ... are very much involved,” Aikens said. “We want to help as much as we can, and the budget committee and I feel like the right thing to do if they can come up with half of it. So we intend to honor what we said before.”

Swim team representatives will continue working to raise funds.

“We’ve got approval from the (Lenoir City Parks and Recreation Department) to be able to use the pool until the weather just won’t allow us to anymore, so we don’t have to have it as early as we expected with the bubble,” he said. “When they would normally put it up there was still — the temperatures outside were still OK to practice outside, if that makes sense. So we’ve got a little bit more time than we thought. We’re shooting for end of the month, Aug. 31 deadline. Like I said, we’ve got a few other places we’re approaching and a few other commitments out there, but we need to get money as quickly as possible.”

The team has about 34 students, DeRose said.

“It affects more than just Lenoir City,” he said. “You’ve got Loudon County schools at the middle school and the high school, we’ve got Sweetwater, a kid from out in Greenback swimming for us. So it extends pretty far in terms of the direct families it impacts, but also there are other schools that use the pool for swimming and they pay a fee to parks and rec for that ability. That’s Concord Christian School and the Atomic City Aquatics Club, ACAC.”