Weston Elementary School students will hold a charity walk at the school to help raise money for the restoration of the South Weiss Street recreation building.
By: Donna Lukiw
Weston Elementary School students are hoping to help with the reconstruction of the borough’s South Weiss Street recreation building, where a fire in March damaged the structure and the youth sports equipment stored inside.
On May 12, the students will hold a charity walk at the school to help raise money for the restoration of the recreation building.
"By doing the walk … the children can see how they themselves can help make a difference in their community," Weston teacher Cynthia Cooper said. The students will ask people to sponsor them by pledging money for the number of times the children walk around Weston School that afternoon, she said.
Ms. Cooper said when the walk is over, the students will get a certificate that tells them how many laps they completed.
The students will then report the number to sponsors and collect any money promised for the project.
The students will turn in the money by May 19.
The Weston PTA will also supply each student in the school with a bottle of water for the walk and an ice-cream treat for the class at each grade level that collects the most money for the walk.
Police said an overloaded electrical power strip caused the early morning fire at the recreation building. Computers and cell phone chargers among other items were plugged into the power strip.
While the entire building suffered extensive damage, police said the office and the garage were the most heavily damaged.
Borough administrator Gary Garwacke said sports equipment, offices and computers were burned. He also said there was a record storage room where the borough hall kept all its records prior to 2000, and many records were damaged by water used to douse the fire.
The borough’s emergency broadcast AM radio transmitter was also destroyed in the fire.
Manville’s recreation building had many uses prior to the fire, including hosting senior citizens’ meetings and exercise classes and storing sports equipment.
The center went through an eight-month renovation project in 2003 that included remodeling the building’s bathrooms, installing a new floor into the main hall replacing the previous floor that had been contaminated with asbestos, installing new lighting throughout the main hall and installing a new heating and air-conditioning system.
The building was originally built as the borough’s Civil Defense headquarters in the 1950s.