Dorchester Times: Dorchester Water Park Fundraising Hits Halfway Mark At $75,000

Friday, June 16, 2017

Dorchester Water Park Fundraising Hits Halfway Mark At $75,000

Dorchester appears to be on its way to getting a new water park in its city park.

The Dorchester Community Foundation Fund has targeted a small-scale water park -- or splash pad -- as its next project.

A fundraising "thermometer" beneath the village's electronic marquee on main street shows the project has raised $75,000 already. That's the halfway mark for the total $150,000 cost of the project, according to the information that has been made public.

We reported earlier this year that the Dorchester splash pad received a big boost thanks to a large donation from the Robert Havlat family.

We've spoken to insiders who say other large donations have been made, but our sources refused to name the contributors until later.

This past spring, Dale Hayek, president of the Dorchester Community Foundation Fund, said, "The splash pad will take much community support and participation," calling the project the foundation's "largest and most challenging project" yet.

Dorchester's splash pad is expected to be a larger-scale splash pad, we are told, with the ability to expand it even more in the future. The project is set to be located in Dorcheter's City Park and could begin construction by early next spring if fund raising is adequate. That's according to an e-mail sent to the Times.

If you would like to help speed the project along, donations are encouraged now.

Donations to the Dorchester Community Foundation Fund are accepted anytime, made payable to the Dorchester Foundation Community Fund and mailed to:

Dorchester Community Foundation Fund

c/o Peg Bergmeyer

101 Washington Ave.

Dorchester, NE 68343.

The Dorchester Foundation is a non-profit subsidiary of the Nebraska Community Foundation, so all donations are 100% tax deductible. For questions about the Foundation Fund, e-mail Dale Hayek at dhayek@farmersco-operative.com

3 comments:

AnonymousJune 10, 2017 at 2:52 PM
SOOOO HOT OUT RIGHT NOW TOO BAD ITS NOT FUNCTIONING NOW
ReplyDelete
Replies
spottercodyJune 15, 2017 at 10:18 AM
Is there an email address to the person in charge of the Dorchester Community Foundation? Have a couple sources to for companies looking to give away money.
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Dorchester: A Good Little Family Town

Dorchester, Nebraska (est. population 630) is located in northern Saline county. Close in proximity to Interstate 80, Dorchester is only 25 minutes from the state capital of Lincoln (est. population 250,000) and about 55 minutes from Omaha (metro population 725,000).

Dorchester's median resident age is 37 years. In 2005, Dorchester had a median family income of approximately $35,600. The median house value was about $63,000. About 95 percent of Dorchester residents commute to work via Interstate and highways.

The village has a quality public school, which received a $4.1 million expansion and modernization in 2008; it offers a small classrooms and individualized attention. Total enrollment of grades K-12 is around 230-250 students.

Ancestries of the Dorchester area are primarily German (42.4%), Czech (24.9%), Irish (12.5%), English (5.4%), and Dutch (4.9%).

Dorchester Historical Facts

* On July 4, 1871, the railroad reached Dorchester.
* Incorporated in 1881, Dorchester's population grew from 200 to 500 by 1882.
* In 1882, Dorchester had 90 buildings, 35 of which were businesses or public facilities. Brick buildings lined both sides of Washington Avenue for two blocks.
* Dorchester's longest-running newspaper was The Dorchester Star, which was published until the late 1940s.
* By 1889, Dorchester's population is said to have reached 800, while the town housed an opera house, a two-story brick schoolhouse with a bell tower, and four churches.
* By the 1910s, Dorchester had electricity, a water tower and a fire department.
* Dorchester's main arteries, Highways 6 and 33, were graveled in the 1940s.
* Dorchester's first irrigation well was drilled on Chris Weber's farm and rural electrification was finished following WWII.

A Village with History

Dorchester is one of the "alphabet towns" on the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad line built west from Lincoln. The town site was selected for its pleasant location in the northern part of Saline County, about eight miles west of Crete. This situation is an attractive one, being on the level prairie land, midway between the West Blue River and Turkey Creek. The first named stream is three miles north, and the latter about the same distance south from the town. Dorchester was platted in 1870 and incorporated in 1881. The name "Dorchester" came from either for a suburb of Boston by that name or a town in England. No one is sure. Two of the very first settlers were James Seely and Edward McIntyre, who both made Dorchester their permanent home.

Dorchester: In The Beginning

Here is a look at Dorchester around 1890, less than a decade after its official incorporation, as documented by Andreas' History of the State of Nebraska:
* POPULATION: "About 300, and is made up of a substantial and progressive class of citizens, who are moral and industrious. ... The town grew but very little until the year 1879, for the reason that Pleasant Hill, on Turkey Creek, a short distance south, was the county seat and naturally drew a trade for quite a large scope of country."
* BUSINESS: "The business and professional interests of the town are represented by three general merchandise stores, two drug, one grocery, one furniture, two hardware, and two millinery stores, one bank, two restaurants, two hotels, three livery stables, a post office, one newspaper office, two elevators, two lumber yards, two coal yards, two blacksmith shops, two lawyers and four physicians."
* SCHOOL: "The schoolhouse is a good one. The schoolhouse was built in 1872, since which time the public schools have been continually kept up. The present schoolhouse is 24' x 40' in size, two stories high. The school is graded and consists of three departments. The house is found too small, and arrangements will soon be made to increase its size."
* CHURCHES: "There are three substantial churches."
* HOMES: "The residence portion of the village is made up of neat houses of different styles of architecture, but none of them very large."
* NEWSPAPER: "The Dorchester Star, which was established August 21, 1881, by H. C. Bittenbender, who edited it until January 19, 1882, when he sold it to Ryerson & Bullock, the present proprietors. The Star is a bright weekly paper, five-column quarto, in size, and is Republican in politics."