SEQUIM — Goal!
More than two years later and $220,000 in cash fundraising, Sequim Family Advocates will break ground Monday on
13 acres of multiuse playfields near the city of Sequim-owned Water Reclamation Demonstration Park.
The project, expected to be complete this fall, will kick up the community’s inventory of youth soccer and general recreation fields, lessening the dependence and burden on Sequim School District’s beaten-up and overused grounds.
“It all came together. We hit our fundraising goal,” said an elated Craig Stevenson, Sequim Family Advocates president, on Tuesday.
He was joined for the announcement by board member Michael McAleer at the soon-to-be-improved site east of the demonstration park, which also will be partially bounded by a leg of Olympic Discovery Trail.
“For a lot of us, it’s going to be the new central location for young people and older people interested in more recreational activities,” McAleer said.
“This will be something to look back at and be proud of for generations.”
Stevenson said what put the group over the top was a $105,000 grant from the Albert Haller Foundation in February.
Gary Smith, Albert Haller Foundation board president since it was formed as a nonprofit in 1992 in memory of his friend, said Sequim Family Advocates’ project was “in keeping with Albert’s philosophy.”
Sequim Family Advocates will name the site Albert Haller Playfields.
Besides soccer, the fields will be used for flag football, lacrosse and other community events and activities.
Stevenson said the nearby segment of Olympic Discovery Trail will be detoured around the project until completion.
The trail will be altered slightly but improved to accommodate the fields, and a connecting trail of about 200 yards from the fields to the parking lot will be added to complete a loop around the 13 acres.
Besides securing city construction permit approvals, the group has been waiting for the ground to dry up enough to begin excavation. Unrelenting spring rains have finally subsided.
Stevenson estimated that 1,000 children are anxious to play on the five large and three small new soccer fields on the north side of Bell Creek, adjoining Carrie Blake Park to the south.
Sequim School District’s overcrowded fields are pockmarked with muddy spots and lumpy grass.
At times, Stevenson said, teams are left to practice on paved portions of the school grounds for lack of available fields.
He called it a “crisis” back in October 2008 when Sequim Family Advocates first formed and said use today by junior soccer youths has doubled over the past seven years to 500 players, with additional soccer club use at about 100 more.
Already donated has been more than $150,000 in in-kind construction from We Dig It Excavation, owned by John Dickinson of Sequim; Primo Construction of Carlsborg; Lakeside Industries of Port Angeles; Clallam Co-op of Sequim; Pettit Oil of Port Angeles; Four Seasons Engineering of Port Angeles; and David Cummins & Associates of Sequim.
Primo will install curbing for the 100-space parking lot.
Sequim City Band, which performs at the James Center band shell at the demonstration park, has joined with Sequim Family Advocates as a partner in building the parking lot the two groups will share for field events and music performances.
Lakeside will lay 450 feet of paved walking path around the fields, and the Clallam Co-op has donated seed and fertilizer to grow the grass.
Pettit Oil donated fuel and lubricants for the grading equipment.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.