Originally published July 29, 2019 by Fox 6 Now.
By Tim Van Vooren
A lot of times, sports is all about teamwork. A couple of groups used that mentality to upgrade a Milwaukee high school’s athletic facilities.
“We are a very old building, a beautiful, old building, and we have a lot of things that are outdated,” said Sandra Peterson, Bay View High School principal.
The Cal Ripken Sr. Foundation’s Team-8 Tour and volunteers from UnitedHealthcare put in work to change that.
“So we come in — over a span of a few days, we have a ton of volunteers do some awesome work, put together some amazing spaces,” said Chris Rubright with the Cal Ripken Sr. Foundation. “It’s a huge volunteer initiative that, we have dealt with them for the last four years, specifically here in Milwaukee. We are at Bay View High School, and it’s based around doing volunteers and projects based around, overall, improving health facilities, wellness, and really facilities related to improving overall healthy lifestyles.”
“The weight room, they are actually adding a fitness, cardio room for us, and doing a build out on the culinary arts kitchen to add a cafe,” said Principal Peterson.
Peterson said the changes were necessary and would really pay off when the 2019-2020 school year gets underway.
“This will really strengthen our physical education program, as well as provide some really state-of-the-art training facilities for our athletes,” said Principal Peterson.
Organizers said they were excited for students and staff to see an instant improvement, hopeful this would serve as just the start of something bigger for the school and its students.
“Provide them some tools that will last them for many, many years to come, in partnership with the Team-8 Tour, which has provided some of the equipment that we are going to be setting up,” said Dustin Hinton, United Healthcare CEO. “Super excited to have a lasting impact on this high school.”
“A lot of these events act like a catalyst, so they kind of spur and add on to what some of the existing programs are and some of the existing offerings for students and staff are at these schools, and we also kind of see it trampoline a little bit and kind of provide that additional effect moving forward, so we have, not only the school, not only the kids, but also the community rally behind these projects and take a whole new interest in what they have to offer,” said Rubright.
Besides helping renovate Bay View High School, volunteers also took part in a celebration at the school after the work was done.
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