By Terry Karkos,Staff Writer

DIXFIELD – Members of SAD 21’s Community Skate Park Committee are seeking donations to meet a $7,000 goal to create a community skate park.

Through grants and donations since the project began two years ago, the committee has raised about $1,500, said committee member Laurie Soucy at Monday night’s SAD 21 Consolidated School Board meeting.

Last Saturday, during a bicycle safety rodeo, committee members held a bake sale fund-raiser.

But bake sales don’t generate the kind of money needed, Soucy said.

“We had a successful fund-raiser Saturday with $23 raised, but there would have to be a lot of bake sales if we do it that way,” she said.

That’s why Soucy, the district’s wellness coordinator, and three Dirigo High School students pitched the new donations fund-raiser to the school board. A homeroom penny drive fund-raiser is also about to begin.

The $7,000 is needed to pave an area in the park for bikers, but mostly for skateboarders, said Dirigo High School Principal Dan Hart early Tuesday evening.

The school district gave permission to the committee to use a 70-foot-by-100-foot parcel at the end of the high school parking lot for the skate park.

Currently, area skateboarders are using a couple of half-pipes and small balance beams that the district got from Bridgton’s Recreation Department, Hart said.

The skate park project is an offshoot of area wellness initiatives and afterschool programs, as is Dirigo’s new Skateboard Club. But the park isn’t just going to be for Dixfield’s use.

An early grant stipulates that SAD 21 and SAD 43 work together on the project.

“The area is not only going to be used by Dixfield students, but it will also benefit other area students as well,” Soucy said.

Any donation sponsorship, she added, would be noted on a special sign to be erected when the paving project is completed.

For more information, call Soucy at 562-4304.