My name is Gary Vavra and I am the director of facilities and transportation at the Aspen School District.
I am writing this letter to ask for our communities support to help upgrade our athletic turf field. Our children (it takes the entire village to help raise a child) are in need of a replacement turf field. The school district as well as the city of Aspen have committed some funding to replace the field this summer, but there is a shortfall of funding and since we all live here and want our school system to be the best it can be (which helps our property values stay strong), we should do the replacement field the best way we can. Ideally in the mountains when spring sports start at the end of February, a dome or heated field would be the ultimate dream. However, the cost and controversy of that would be a very long debate and process. With that said, upgrading our field lighting system to LED lighting would be in order if we do the field this summer. The problem we face, as I said earlier, is a financial shortfall. I am asking all of our community — those who live local year-round and those who own but visit just at times during the year, to please reach deep into their pocketbooks and help us raise the funds to accomplish the replacement field and LED lighting upgrade.
To do a top-notch job for our children and help keep the real estate values high, it would be wonderful to help raise an additional $750,000. Please help by contributing to the Aspen Education Foundation; earmark your donation “TURF FIELD.” Thank you.
Gary Vavra
Woody Creek