GILROY
– Local schools depend on donations from the community – from
volunteer hours to computers to money for programs. But this time,
the school district will be doing the giving.
By Lori Stuenkel
GILROY – Local schools depend on donations from the community – from volunteer hours to computers to money for programs. But this time, the school district will be doing the giving.
Gilroy Unified School District donated two modular buildings set to be demolished to the South County Dayworker Center, which will provide shelter and services to dayworkers, who now congregate in the open air each morning seeking casual jobs in Morgan Hill.
“This is our first step, I guess,” said America Romero, director of the center. “It’s been in the works for about three years as an idea, and now we’re on the road to actually getting a building out there.”
St. Catherine’s Parish Dayworker Committee, which started the Morgan Hill program, broke ground on the center Dec. 1. The two buildings will provide about 3,000 square feet of space, the first shelter available to the dayworkers at the center’s currently vacant East Main Avenue and Depot Street location.
Weston Miles Architects of Morgan Hill is leasing the land to the center for $1 per month.
Romero said she hopes to get the buildings to the site by the first week of January, but the cost of transporting them from Eliot Elementary School, at 470 Seventh St. in Gilroy, to Morgan Hill will be three to four times what was anticipated.
“That’s been quite a shock for us,” Romero said. One mover gave a ballpark cost of $8,000, but that did not include actually removing the buildings from their Eliot location and installing them in Morgan Hill.
“Bids have been coming in at an average of $30,000 to $40,000, so we’ve been obviously scrambling to raise the money,” Romero said.
The center hopes to use its status as a nonprofit organization get a price break of possibly 10 percent.
Charles Weston of Weston Miles Architects contacted GUSD on behalf of the center to ask if the district had any older, unusable buildings that would be suitable for donation. In fact, the district did have two modular buildings – buildings that are partially pre-fabricated and assembled on site – at Eliot slated to be demolished.
“It was a very nice, opportune time for us to help out,” said Charlie Van Meter, GUSD’s director of facilities and maintenance operations.
The district will save slightly on the total cost for demolishing the Eliot buildings, although Van Meter could not estimate how much.
For details on donating to the center, contact 778-5513.
