The Rainy River District School Board continues to hear concerns about its plans to create a Student Foundation.
Members of the Fort Frances Muskies football booster club worry it will lead to an end of the Touchdown Club.
They addressed trustees this week.
Secretary-Treasurer Marlis Bruyere feels their group is needed.
“When we became aware of a foundation, we were a little confused and uncertain as to what the expectations would be for us. And one of the reasons we had concerns about it was because we feel we have unique needs and costs that might not be necessarily addressed in a foundation,” says Bruyere.
She notes that the football club allows anybody can walk on the field and try out because the booster club has helped purchase equipment.
“Those boys can walk out there and play and be part of a team and not have to pay $1,500 in equipment for themselves,” says Bruyere.
The Touchdown Club is also worried the forming of a student foundation will result in the loss of support from parents.
“We have phenomenal parents, and I don’t want to lose that. If we lost our parents, we’d lose our football team because, without their support, we wouldn’t have that.”
Bruyere says it is the extra things that parents bring to the club like providing extra food for players to share on the long bus rides to games or providing cash to coaches to purchase food.
She says it’s those things that the foundation won’t be able to do.
“That’s what’s unique about our club. And probably a lot of the clubs have that value base, but we have outstanding parents.”
The booster club of the Muskies boys’ hockey team expressed similar concerns last month.
Trustee Jeff Lehman says he’s dumbfounded by the concerns, noting it is not the intent of taking over from booster clubs.
The board has formed an ad-hoc committee to explore the feasibility of a student foundation to support various school activities, including extra-curricular sports.
To date, it has only had two meetings.
