BILL PARKS
WESTFIELD—It may not be the time of year to go for a swim but that won’t stop the Boys and Girls Club of Westfield from trying to get ready for it.
The Boys and Girls Club of Westfield is finishing up repairs on its indoor pool, after receiving over $57,000 from the city of Westfield to help fund the project. In addition, the club also received work on the pool and its components from the community and the club’s board members to help get it back into swimming shape.
“We’re very grateful to those who made this work,” Bill Parks, director of Boys and Girls Club of Westfield, said. “The pool will now be good for another 20 years.”
The Westfield Boys and Girls Club pool, which is currently under construction, is expected to be ready for swimmers by mid-February
The pool, which is 25 years old, had originally been shut down in October 2016, after the filtration system stopped working. Parks realized that the repair would need to happen in order to get it back up and running, and in addition found other parts of the pool that needed to be repaired or replaced.
Some of the pieces that have been replaced have been tiling of the pool, underwater vent covers and new stairs for the entrance into the pool. However, one item that was able to be repaired instead of replaced may have saved the club tens of thousands of dollars.
“We were able to rebuild a portion of the pool filter by board members,” Parks said. “The cost was estimated between $80,000 to $90,000 but we didn’t spend that due to the rebuild.”
The pool filter, which is in an approximately 20 feet by 30 feet room, filters 122,000 gallons of water daily.
Indeed, the pool filter—which is actually an entire room—would have cost the club a significant amount of money. It is an incredibly intricate device, and its repairs or replacement are not cheap. The filter for the club’s pool is in an approximately 20 feet by 30 feet room, and features a 6 foot by 6 foot large tank that filters the pool’s 122,000 gallons of water a day.
Parks estimated that the Boys and Girls Club received about $20,000 worth of work on the project, in addition to the over $57,000 that was received from the city.
The city’s money came from the Community Development Block Grant that Westfield received. Community development director Peter Miller said that the city had some excess grant money leftover, so he applied it to the pool project, which was determined to provide service to low- and moderate-income families.
Now that the pool is repaired, Parks expects 200 or more swimmers a day during the peak summer months. The club has a swim team for youths, provides a swim time in the mornings for elderly and provides swimming lessons to those who need them.
