New Burgess Field On Track for Fall Football, Soccer

It’s official: will get its new artificial turf surface in time for next fall’s football and soccer seasons.

“This is just another indication of just how great this community actually is,” said District 304 Board of Education member Matt Henry just before the board formally accepted a $450,000 anonymous donation to fund the $1 million project and authorized staff to seek construction bids.

Board members had already accepted both the $450,000 gift and $45,000 raised by The Friends of Burgess Field last April. But difficulties in assessing the field rebuilding project’s scope last spring pushed the project back a year and put those donations back in limbo, since they could not be spent during the 2010-11 budget year.

Last fall district officials had budgeted $500,000 to repair the field’s collapsed drainage system and plant new sod over it. Several residents, though, felt strongly that artificial turf would provide a safer, longer-lasting playing surface for Geneva High School’s sports teams, band and gym classes.

 “The drainage system had already collapsed, and the field turned into a swamp every time it rained,” said The Friends of Burgess Field founder Tom Finnberg last spring. “I was seeing games where the kids were so covered in mud that you couldn’t tell which team they were on. My son, who’s been playing football since he could crawl, is a sophomore this year, and I wanted him to play on turf here before he graduates.”

The artificial turf will not only save the district an estimated $70,000 per year in maintenance costs, it will enable Geneva High School to use Burgess Field to physical education classes. “Up to now, this field has been mainly used by the football and soccer teams and the marching band (because it was too fragile to stand the stress of daily usage),” said board member Mary Stith. “The artificial turf will benefit, not just our extracurricular activities, but our P.E. curriculum.”

While the anonymous donation still generated a lot of praise Monday, board President Tim Moran also thanked all the residents whose efforts raised the $45,000 gift a few hundred or thousand dollars at a time.

“I can’t pretend to know all the people who came up with all sorts of creative ways to raise money for the field,” he said. “They are a testament to what this community can do.”