This article is from page 30 of the 2008-09-30 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 30 JPG
SCHOOL sports fans are a step clos- er to being able to play the games they love all year round, thanks to the support of local people in Scariff and the Clare VEC.
Scariff Community College has long enjoyed having two playing pitches for their sports periods, games and practice but the pitches have only been of use for a few weeks every year, because they are too wet to play on.
But recent fund-raising efforts with
a race night which raised €15,000 and a contribution of €10,000 for the VEC have enabled the school to call in the contractors and begin the process of draining one pitch.
“The first part of the drainage scheme is done, with the pipes down and the next step is to sand and level the pitch and re-plant it” said school principal Sean Daly.
“We decided to go for making one of the two pitches an all-weather pitch so that we can play year round. We have very active hurling and Camogie teams at the moment but
the long term plan is to have a run- ning track around the other pitch and maybe have a permanent long jump and facilities for other sports and ALO eN Col eee
To complete work on the current pitch, the school will be seeking help from the Munster Council of the GAA as well as running more fun- draisers.
Scariff residents are no strangers to raising money to help their chil- dren get a rounded education. The two pitches were bought with money raised locally in 1991 for the then
princely sum of €50,000.
The efforts at drainage won’t be wasted with numbers at the popular secondary school rising all the time. This year, there are 312 young people studying for their exams in compari- son to 264 last year.