Point Parents Partner with Ideal Landscaping to Improve Athletic Fields

Parents at banded together with a local business to completely revamp the school’s athletic field.

Students will now be able to play outside during physical education and participate in sports.

Epifanio Taormina, who headed the efforts, said it started out as a simple project to plant grass on the land. She originally wanted to recruit parents to aerate and plant seed on the field, which had flooding issues.

“The timing wasn’t right last year when I suggested the idea, so I brought it up again this year,” said Taormina in a district release. Taormina has previously served as treasurer and vice president of the Point PTO and currently is responsible for promotions. “The project morphed from its original inception of annual maintenance of the field and took on a life of its own.”

Taormina got Dave Buckel, another parent, involved in the project. Buckel owns Ideal Landscaping and was doing work replacing the sod on a field in the Parkway School District. Buckel asked the district if he could use the extra sod for Point.

The Point PTO raised $3,500 to fund the project, which covered a crew laying and cutting the sod.

“The money we spent for the field was minute compared to the services we received,” said Point PTO President Don Michaud. “All of the feedback we’ve gotten about the new field has been extremely positive. Parents are dumbfounded by what the field used to look like and how it looks now.”

The organization raises nearly $50,000 a year through fundraisers, and uses the money for projects that cannot be funded through the school district.

“Without the efforts made by parents to participate in fundraisers, projects like these wouldn’t be possible,” Michaud said.