A grass roots campaign to restore the services lost when LBW Community College’s Upward Bound grant was not renewed means the college will launch a new program, Apex, in the spring.
The City of Andalusia and the Dixon Foundation this week approved requests to fund the program, joining Southeast Gas, Covington Electric and the City of Opp, all of whom have already said “yes.”
“This means we are in business officially,” LBW President Dr. Herb Riedel said Wednesday. “We still have other requests not heard from, but as a grass roots effort, this is coming together.”
Upward Bound is a federal grant program that helps potential first-generation college students prepare for that possibility through academic and cultural experiences. LBW has operated an Upward Bound program for 40 years, most recently serving nine high schools. When the college’s grant proposal was a fraction of a point short of being reapproved, the effort to start a similar, locally-funded program be
“We have drafted a proposal which mirrors the Upward Bound program,” Riedel said. “A number of people saw the value in what it did for students as well as the community, and did not want to let it go.”
The Apex plan includes 50 to 60 students, and includes a summer component.
Southeast Gas CEO Greg Henderson wrote letters to area municipalities requesting the funding.
“I have known several students for whom this program positively changed t heir lives forever,” Henderson said of Upward Bound. “The Apex Program will have the same criteria and anticipated benefits.”
Riedel said the selection process for student participants will begin in the spring, and the college has been advertising for a director.
“We are very excited,” Riedel said. “We are excited for the students because those individual students will be benefitted, and have a whole range of options open to them, they did not even know were available.”
The Andalusia City Council usually votes to spend money, but on Tuesday, the council got a windfall.
Councilman Kennith Mount, who represents the city on the board of Southeast Gas, presented a check for $289,850.
Southeast Gas is owned by 14 municipalities, each of which has equal representation on the company’s board of directors. Each year, the company distributes profits back to its municipalities.
“In addition to this direct benefit to the city, Southeast Gas does other things to support the community,” Mount said. “In the last seven years, we have given an average of $12,000 to the school system and contributed to economic development enhancement $13,000 per year.”
Southeast Gas also awards community service scholarships to local students.
“This puts the total return in the neighborhood of $316,000,” Mount said.
Candyland 2017 opened this past weekend with a great start.
“Opening day is notoriously a slow day,” Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Chrissie Duffy said. “But we had more people on opening day than we’ve ever had on opening day.”
And this year, opening day and opening weekend coincided with football – the Andalusia Bulldogs in playoffs on Friday night and the Auburn Tigers in the SEC championship Saturday afternoon.
The event is more spread out this year, so people have more room to move around, she said.
“We had steady traffic all day Saturday and Sunday, too,” Duffy said. “We weren’t just slammed and out of control, but everybody was busy.
“We have a good group of volunteers and staff, and they all seem to know what they’re doing,” she said.
City of Andalusia Director of Planning Andy Wiggins agreed that opening weekend went well. The taller and longer snow slide was a favorite, and Wiggins said even an 80-year-old “kid” went down it.
“When he got to the bottom, he wanted to donated money to Candyland because he couldn’t believe what all we had available for kids,” Wiggins said.
Monday afternoon, Duffy was busy sharpening the skates at the Springdale “skate shack” so they’d be in tip-top shape for field trips this week.
Candyland opens to the public again on Wednesday morning, when the village on the Square will be open for pre-schoolers from 10 a.m. until noon, with snow at 11 a.m.
Springdale on Ice will open from 5 until 8 p.m. on Thursday.
Andalusia Public Library is expanding its services to include immersive learning kits, thanks to the help of a local charity that aims to put $120,000 back into the community this year.
The United Fund acts as an umbrella agency, raising money for a number of organizations within Covington County.
“The United Fund has really helped us branch out to nontraditional library items,” APL director Karin Taylor said.
“We’re looking to purchase S.T.E.M. materials, bird-watching kits, microscopic kits, geology kits. We’ll also have stargazing kits and telescopes to check out.”
The Andalusia Public Library has a computer lab, Internet access, several free book websites, DVD rentals, movie rentals and game rentals.
“We’ve had magicians come in to entertain children,” Taylor said. “We’ve even had a real cow in our library. We have a summer reading program for our younger people. We’re really more than just a library, we’re a community center.”
Taylor has already purchased some of the kits, and will soon have them available for check out.
“We get $700 for the year,” Taylor said.
She said the United Fund money would get them started, but more donations are needed to continue to add to the take-home items.
Taylor is hoping that the kits will help bring in more patrons.
“The kits are really educational,” she said.
“We have two levels of bird-watching kits, one for adults; one for children. They’ll feature field guides so that people can write which birds they saw locally. New users can look back on the old entries and determine which birds are active in the area. We’re really excited to offer more to our patrons,” Taylor said.
The United Fund has set a goal of $120,000 for its 2018 distribution. Donations for the Covington County United Fund may be sent to P.O. Box 1791, Andalusia.
The Covington County United Fund also contributes to the Lucile Pierce Family Literacy Center, Opp Parks and Recreation, Opp Public Library, Meals on Wheels, Covington County 4-H Programs, Sav-A-Live, American Red Cross, Florala Senior Center, Florala Public Library, South Central Alabama Mental Health, Crossover Ministry , Covington County Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities, Bethesda House, Opp Benevolence Fund, Andalusia Community Christmas, Andalusia Adult Activity Center and Andalusia Department of Leisure Services.
For more information on their new services at APL, contact Karin Taylor at 334-222-6612.
Price tag will top $10M, final decisions expected soon
After more than a year of talking about potential designs for major renovations at Andalusia High School, working with a professional estimator and two bid processes, members of the city board of education finally got some firm numbers this week.
In October, the system received no bids for the combined projects, and since then, Superintendent Ted Watson and architect Chuck Jones have been interviewing contractors and negotiating prices. Of the four contractors invited to participate, Jones said, three showed.
Jones and Watson said either of the three could have done the work, but they recommended that the board hire locally-based Wyatt Sasser Construction.
“We asked for a dollar amount of the impact on the local economy,” Watson said. “That is about $5.8 million.”
Based on current negotiations, Jones said, Wyatt Sasser is willing to contract to do the base project for $9.39 million. There are 11 alternatives to the base bid – some of which are truly alternatives, others of which are being bid separately to save money – which would bring the total cost of the project to $12.24 million.
Among the extras the board will still have to decide is whether to move the field 30 feet closer to the bleachers on the home side, and whether or not to install synthetic turf.
If the project is to be completed in 2018, it is important to get started in January, Jones said, so that the stadium will be ready for football games in September. Jones encouraged board members to approve the base bid and consider the alternatives as possible change orders.
“We’ve put everything in there we could think of, and $12 million is the most it could ever be,” Jones said.
But board members needed more assurances about costs, and the possibility that unforeseen issues could drive those costs up.
In an almost-three-hour meeting, the board agreed to use Wyatt Sasser as the contractor, but wants more numbers on funding sources and other expected expenses over the next few years before giving the full go-ahead for the project. Read More>