Memories from the Northfield Inn Pool
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"My children and grandchildren all dipped their toes in the pool at 6 weeks old. Many memories."
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"I have many, many cherished memories of playing with friends as children and staying in the pool so long that my fingers got prune-y every day."
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"The ice cream sandwiches always tasted better while sitting on top of the stone wall."
COSTS!
The top concern shared on the survey is the cost to build and maintain a community pool. With good reason! Based on my research, it is very difficult (impossible?) to break even running a nonprofit community pool in a place the size of Northfield if you rely on entrance fees.
That’s why the plan is to create an endowment. An endowment is money raised with the idea of never spending the original amount. Instead, you spend only the annual interest/growth. In our case, the annual interest/growth would be used to fund most of the pool’s ongoing costs. For example, if we have an endowment of $1 million dollars, it would provide on average about $50,000/year for maintenance and upkeep. Once we have a better sense of the community’s priorities through the survey, we’ll be able to estimate the cost to build and maintain the pool and figure out how much we need to raise to make it a reality now and forever!
