While work is underway for the Guthrie Center High School weight room and fitness center addition, the District and specifically its Activities Director and strength and conditioning students have made significant headway on fundraising for the new facility equipment.

The District has raised over $108,000 towards their goal of $160,000 to purchase the equipment for the building that is largely being paid for by Secure an Advanced Vision for Education funds. Activities Director and Coach Cody Matthewson has helped lead the charge over the last several months with online fundraisers and has at least 54 students soliciting donations from relatives and community members.

While COVID-19 may have taken a toll on fundraising plans and on the students’ ability to use the current weight room, Matthewson says students were allowed back in the high school on July 1st, and they’ve been keeping social distancing a priority, “We’re trying to do as best we could to keep everybody separated, we ran three lifting groups in the morning and still been able to use our weight room. And luckily right now with the size of our facility which is not a very large facility we’ve got the gymnasium that’s right off there so we’re able to utilize that as well and have been able to space the kids out and have them in smaller groups. You know having the kids lift in the same group the entire time, not being able to switch groups, that way they’re around the same kid and they’re only (contact) tracing to the small groups especially when you start putting them on the racks and they’re groups of three or four so that they’re always working with the same kids.”

Matthewson feels confident that they will reach their fundraising goal in time for the facility’s completion toward the end of November. For more information on the school’s progress, visit here.