JOYCE — Thanks to a lot of blood, sweat, tears and toil — and most importantly, funding — athletes at Crescent High School have a brand-spanking new weight room to work out in.
The weight room will be opened up to the public at 6:30 p.m. today for an open house.
Tommy Farris, a 2008 Crescent High graduate and multi-sport athlete at the school, has been the driving force behind fixing up Crescent’s weight room. He also volunteers at the school as a weight-training coach.
Farris said he got the idea years ago to do something for his school when he was on the University of Washington’s track team, and saw the weight room facilities at UW. He said a lot of the old equipment at the school was dangerous and literally rusty.
“Crescent has always meant a lot to me, I had such a great experience there,” Farris said. He said that pride goes back to when he was six years old and he watched the Crescent football team win the state championship in 1996.
“When I saw the weight room at Washington, I knew right there what I wanted to do. I wanted to be able to give back to the community,” he said.
So, with some help from his mother, Karen, a member of the Joyce Communication Education Foundation, they were able to get grants and other funding to help fund the refurbishment of the weight room.
The total cost of the project has been $20,000 but there was also a lot of local volunteer work done in installing the equipment and new rubber-coated flooring. The new weight room even has floor-to-ceiling mirrors to help athletes in their weightlifting techniques.
“Nothing was professionally installed,” Farris said.
In addition to the refurbishment to the new room, there is also plenty of new equipment, including four half-rack weight stations replacing plain old bench presses.
The project received large donations from the Myrtle and John Gossett Foundation, the First Federal Foundation and the Benjamin Philips Memorial Fund. Other groups helping were the Sattle Foundation and the Albert Haller Foundation.
Local donations came from Tesero, Josh Anderson, Seven Cedars Casino, Lakeside Industries and a number of people in Joyce and Crescent alumni.
The Joyce community raised about $2,500 through a GoFundMe campaign. That campaign is still active and raising money for the project, with a goal of $5,000 locally raised. If you want to donate, go to www.gofundme.com/crescent.
