Sean C. Morgan
Repairs to the flat areas of the roof at the Jim Riggs Community Center will begin in the middle of August.
The project will cost about $24,000. The Jim Riggs Community Center houses the Sweet Home Senior Center and the Sweet Home Branch of the Boys and Girls Clubs of the Greater Santiam. The building was constructed using a Community Development Block Grant and a local fund-raising campaign.
“I’m always looking out after this building,” said Senior Center Executive Director Ken Bronson, who oversees the facility as a whole. “That’s just part of the job.”
The roof started leaking last winter over the utility-storage area of the Boys and Girls Club side of the building, Bronson said.
That’s one of three flat parts of the roof holding mechanical and HVAC equipment. The others are over the shared arts and crafts room and the Senior Center kitchen. Water leaked in through the HVAC cutouts.
“They’re all original, so they’re 18 years old,” Bronson said, and it was time to replace them before the problems get worse.
The club and Senior Center replaced the sloped tab roofing about five years ago, Bronson said. It was supposed to have a 30-year life, so the warranty covered part of the cost.
The city helped cover the cost along with funds from the building’s capital maintenance fund.
That’s a fund for the building, Bronson said. A management team, which includes two representatives each from the city, the Senior Center, the Boys and Girls Club and the community, oversees maintenance for the building.
One hundred percent of Community Center rental funds from events, like the annual Chamber of Commerce banquet, wedding receptions and family reunions, go to the maintenance fund.
“We certainly didn’t have enough money to cover that (the upcoming repair),” Bronson said, and Community Center officials don’t want to drain it completely.
Other projects come up periodically.
In the last five years, counting the upcoming roof project, the center has spent $49,000 on repairs and maintenance, Bronson said.
Coming up, he added, “this place is going to get a paint job.”
To pay for the roofing project, the city and the maintenance fund have contributed $10,000 each, Bronson said. A fund-raising campaign raised $8,314.51.
Anything extra will go back into the maintenance fund, Bronson said.
“We started promoting this at the chamber banquet,” Bronson said. Pat Tungett took point on the fund-raising campaign. The Boys and Girls Club assisted at events. People came into the center and wrote checks more than once.
Bronson thanked the community.
“This is the Community Center,” a multi-use facility, he said. “It’s about the community.”
Friday morning, Shirley Austin, Chips ‘n’ Splinters director, presented a $2,000 check raised at the Sportsman’s Holiday Chips ‘n’ Splinters show held July 13 to Tungett and Bronson.
“That’s almost a third of what we raised, and I think it’s a great contribution,” Tungett said.