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ELKINS – The Randolph County Commission approved a pair of funding requests from the Elkins-Randolph County YMCA Thursday during its regular meeting at the James F. Cain Courthouse Annex.
Randolph County YMCA executive director Sid Gillispie addressed commissioners Cris Siler, David Kesling and Chris See during the meeting and first talked about a special event the YMCA is hosting today.
“We are having our September to Remember Music Festival on Friday at the Citizens Bank Amphitheatre,” said Gillispie. “It’s part of D&E Parent’s Weekend and will feature the reggae band Jah Works, along with Shane Meade & The Sound, and Aubrey Rey, who is a country singer that was on American Idol. The YMCA has been working together with Davis & Elkins College and Mountain State Forest Festival for this concert.”
Gillispie told the commissioners the concert benefits the YMCA and Mountain State Forest Festival and is a celebration of D&E’s 120 years in Elkins. He requested $5,000 from the Commission to help fund the concert.
“We’ve been very lucky to have the support of local businesses and we are requesting support from the County Commission for this event,” said Gillispie. “We have always been very appreciative of the County Commission for helping us out.”
The Commission unanimously approved allocating $5,000 for the September to Remember Music Festival. The money will be taken from the hotel-motel tax line item in the county budget.
This will be the second year for the YMCA concert, which drew close to 650 people at last year’s event.
“We are looking to make the concert even bigger next year and to have it a week later during the week of the Festival,” said Gillispie. “It’s free to the community and if we can make what we are planning happen next year, we are looking at drawing around three or four thousand people…The Festival used to have a big concert on the Saturday of the Festival and that hasn’t happened for a long time.”
Gillispie then spoke about a project ongoing at the YMCA swimming pool.
“We are needing a new filtration system for our pool area and we are going to have about $100,000 invested into this,” Gillispie said. “Anything you can do would be very helpful to the project.”
Gillispie said the project would also include work on the women’s locker room and the construction of a new room for 10-to-15-year-old kids next to the kitchen area that will be a clubhouse room with ping pong and other things for youths to do.
Kelsing told Gillispie the Commission still has American Rescue Plan funding to use in such cases.
“Going through line items, we have some money left from our ARP money that we have to get allotted out by the end of the year,” Kesling said. “I went through the manual, and assistance to nonprofits is eligible to use.”
The Commission unanimously approved allocating $25,000 to help with the YMCA’s filtration project. The cost will be taken from ARP funds.
The next Randolph County Commission meeting will be Oct. 2 in the conference room at the Wees Annex.