We are $615,402 closer to our goal! Hurrah! The Town of Big Sandy just received a huge grant from the Montana Land and Water Conservation Fund Program. With that grant, the total raised for the proposed new pool topped $1.3 million. The final goal of over $2 million is still in the distance, but this project is well on its way becoming a reality. The final goal is in sight.
Sandy Crawford, Grant Manager for the Land and Water Conservation Fund, is to be especially recognized for the indispensable help she gave in shepherding our grant request as it wound its way through the process to final approval by the National Park Service. The overall process took many application drafts and changes and a couple of years of work, but it was finally approved this past winter.
Among the more interesting and amusing pieces of the grant request was our need to verify that no endangered species existed on the proposed location of the pool. When Rich Jespersen, author of the grant application, initially reported no endangered species on that property just east of the cemetery and well-within our city limits, the response from "the powers that be" was – How do you know? Rich responded, "Because I walked around the field and was not eaten by a grizzly bear and did not step on any pallid sturgeon." Obviously, these answers were not good enough for the National Park Service, but a timely letter from a wildlife biologist at the Havre office of the Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks Department proved enough to substantiate our claim that no endangered species would be impacted by our construction of a pool at that site.
Also to be commended is that Big Sandy School District for entering into an agreement with the Town for a long-term lease agreement to use that site, owned by the School District, for a Town-owned pool. The final grant proposal involved a lot of pieces that had to fit together in order for the LWCF and the National Park Service to approve it. But they did! And the community of Big Sandy is that much closer to the goal of a new pool.
If you have not donated toward this project or have not done so recently, please consider a gift. Also, if you know any alumni of Big Sandy who might consider such a gift, but live elsewhere now, please let them know of this opportunity in their old home town. Giving is as easy as sending a check payable to the Town of Big Sandy, and sending it to PO Box 381, Big Sandy, MT, 59520. Just write "New Pool Fund" in the memo place on the check blank. All donations are tax deductible. Thank you very much.
