Gym efforts on PACE

The fundraising efforts for the school’s second gym project are moving along, and are soon to enter the next phase.

That’s according to New Rockford-Sheyenne Superintendent Jill Louters, who gave an update to the school board about second gym fundraising at their April meeting.

Back in January, the NR-S school board entered into a contract with PACE Fundraising, a Fargo-based professional fundraising firm. With their help, the school is hoping to successfully re-ignite the fundraising effort for the second gym, which had previously stalled.

The contract with PACE fundraising lasts 12 months, and will cost the district $139,440 payable in 12 monthly installments of $11,620.

On Monday, April 10, Louters told board members that the second gym executive committee has identified over 3,000 potential donors for the project, and that the first of two “propensity assessor” training sessions had already occurred.

Louters said propensity assessors are community members who are volunteering their time to be trained on reviewing potential donors, assessing the likelihood that they might donate, and how much they could be willing to give.

Once their training is complete, they’ll have approximately two weeks to finish assessing the list of 3,000 potential donors. From there, a campaign team will be put together who can partner with the professional fundraisers at Pace Fundraising to finally begin the process of asking for donations.

Louters then announced that they’ve already lined up their campaign chairs, Dewey and Joan Heckaman, who volunteered for the role.

Joan Heckaman was a prominent and longtime state senator representing New Rockford and the old District 23, before her last term expired in 2022.

Dewey Heckaman, Joan’s husband, was a former teacher and coach at NR-S before he retired.

Board president Mike Jacobson asked Louters how it’s been so far working with PACE Fundraising, and if the school is getting the services they expected.

“Definitely what we expected,” responded Louters. “Excellent communication, they’re very good with timelines … and they’ve done some excellent work with upscaling and revising our literature, which has been great as well.”

The price tag for the project, while fluid, has grown considerably since the gym was first discussed. At their meeting on Jan. 9, board members acknowledged the project would likely cost more than $4 million.

The NR-S school board will be updated periodically as the fundraising effort progresses, and the Transcript will provide details as available.