The cinder track surrounded a great natural grass field that served as a great place for teams to practice and gather inside the odd shaped cinder track at South Wasco County High School. It had been watered, mowed and maintained outside the school grounds for over 50 years.
When the Deschutes River Athletic Complex team decided to break ground on the new complex in June and move forward there were not many tears shed for the uneven cinder track but we all thought that the natural grass could have some potential for other projects in the area. We did consider pulling up the cinder to create a nicer walking path up through the city affectionately known as "The Donkey Trail".
We made the decision to break ground in June as we continued to raise funds to complete all the phases of the track. The school administrative team asked if the field should continue to be watered and irrigated. We decided to stop watering the field to save money on watering the field.
What might not seem valuable at the time could be valuable to someone else if there was no barrier to purchase......FREE!
I had recently posted on Facebook Marketplace to get rid of a pile of wood which was an eyesore in our backyard and was not the easiest wood to burn.
I took a few photos of it after I pulled it down from against a fence and uploaded a couple of photos to post onto FaceBook Marketplace. The ad was "Free Firewood, U-Haul, SW Portland. Within 2-3 hours of posting it on Facebook Marketplace I had 3-4 inquiries and it was gone before noon the next day.
In my opinion that firewood was not great. This sod is fantastic.
The DRAC Team put an advertisement on Facebook Marketplace for Free Sod for a finite period of time before the construction really took off. Inquiries started flowing in and the team quickly rented a Sod Cutting Machine to begin removing sections of the field for others to use.
Pay it Forward
Word got out to people in the surrounding area and the local DRAC team tested the capability of the Sod Cutting Machine to it's limit...cutting, stacking and allowing people to come haul it off for their projects.
We love the idea of sustainable giving by maximizing the resources that we have and helping bring value to others and their communities. We received photos of the newly adopted sod from the happy owners. We heard about once group that re-sod their entire little league baseball field with the Redside Turf.
This is just another great example of a project that is continuing to be built has a positive ripple effect of a project that every resource and dollar counts. We look for ways to maximize both the natural resources and the funded resources. ( Excavation, Construction, Paving, Track Surfacing, Grandstands, Track and Field Equipment)
The South Wasco County High School Field lives on in many other communities.
Once the sod had been removed and the earth moving equipment started to grade the track and the field surface we discovered a large section of the field where there had been an irrigation leak ( probably for years). In order to stay on schedule and maintain the quality of both the field and irrigation we needed to have the dirt removed and replaced by solid fill to create a quality field with improved irrigation systems.
We ended up with a massive pile of dirt at the northwest side of the track. The team gathered together to see how we could utilize this valuable resource and quickly made the decision to create a temporary driveway down to the track for the the school bond measure construction team and cover the dangerous and unusable grandstands and hydroseed it as a berm for spectators to view all the upcoming events at the Maupin Deschutes River Athletic Complex from a nice grassy berm overlooking the track and field.. Ron White of Probity Builders calls that "accidentally on purpose" .
We continue to make great progress on the entire project and still need funds to finish the races. Go to our "How to Donate" Page to see how you can help us get to the finish line!