As far as being a model for future public school facility projects, it would have been hard to find a more ideal starting point than Roosevelt’s Ticky Vasconcellos Stadium.

A lot of things had to happen for it to become reality, and a lot of the right people had to be involved. But if it could be done once, I’m sure it could be done again.

It often takes a “perfect storm” for something like this to fall into place so nicely, and that’s what this was. It was the ideal project to push because it did not involve just one school, but four large urban ones: Roosevelt, McKinley, Farrington and Kaimuki.

That’s why it was targeted. Also, because the stadium sits in a rain belt and suffered from poor drainage.

The kick-start was the NFL’s “Grassroots” program, whose grants usually are limited to NFL cities. Anytime you can get a $200,000 head start, it’s a blessing.

Then there was the fundraising effort by Bert T. Kobayashi and the Roosevelt alumni, which includes some movers and shakers in this town like Kobayashi, Marie Milks, Carol Fukunaga, Larry Price, Danny Kaleikini. It just so happened the fundraising effort coincided with the school’s 75th Anniversary, so there was a timely reason to hold a big dinner.

It also helped that State Sen. Brian Taniguchi has been a longtime supporter of Roosevelt — being alumni himself along with his two kids — and of athletics in general. It also really helped that he chaired the Senates Ways and Means committee when the request for legislative support was made and voted on.

It helped that HHSAA executive director Keith Amemiya happens to live in Roosevelt’s district, and he and wife Bonny offered to donate a $20,000 scoreboard.

It helped that the weather cooperated for the most part — remember the 40 straight days of rain we had in the winter of 2006?

The design firm, Fukunaga and Associates, lead contractor Kaikor and the 14 sub-contractors did a great job finishing the project pretty much on schedule, on budget and in time for Saturday’s graduation.

The project even got a last-minute bonus when Ryan Shigetani of Hawaii 3R’s rounded up dozens of volunteers to paint the bleachers, a job that otherwise would have cost up to $60,000.

The result is a high school stadium as beautiful all-around as I’ve seen in all my travels.

Now, not every public school can get a $200,000 grant from the NFL, or have a huge 75th Annivarsary dinner spearheaded by such prominent alumni, or get a $20,000 donation from the Amemiyas.

But every school has alumni, and every public school plays a significant role in the community it is located in. So I don’t see why the alumni and community cannot get involved at every school.

I donate money (not a lot) to my high school and college every year, and try to support fund-raising efforts at both. It makes me feel good, that I am helping those who followed me just as I was helped by those that I followed. It also makes me feel good because instead of just complaining about increased costs, I feel in some small way I am directly helping to do something about it.

The public schools really need help with their facilities, and as Amemiya said, they cannot realistically get all the help they need just from the legislature. It takes help from corporations, from private donors large and small, from alumni and the community.

Sometimes, it might take a perfect storm.

But as we have seen with Roosevelt, the results can be fantastic.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 28th, 2008 at 11:30 pm and is filed under Prep Talk. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.