Three Rivers Booster Club pledges $50,000 to activity center

The Three Rivers Booster Club has pledged $50,000 toward a new activity center at Three Rivers College.

The Booster Club, which helps support Three Rivers' athletics through events and fundraising, pledged to donate $25,000 per year for the next two years to the Three Rivers Endowment Trust to be used for a proposed activity center that will serve as a new home for the Raiders and Lady Raiders basketball teams and area sports tournaments.

Three Rivers' proposed activity center will seat 3,000 people in a state-of-the-art gymnasium that will be convertible between a single full-sized court and three smaller courts for local tournaments and sports camps. The 60,000-square-foot facility also will have six locker rooms, a medical training area, hospitality rooms, concessions areas, coaches' offices, a weight room and a Three Rivers Hall of Fame.

The building will also serve as a Federal Emergency Management Agency/State Emergency Management Agency-certified emergency shelter designed to withstand an F5 tornado.

Partial funding has been secured through a $2.5 million FEMA/SEMA Safe Room grant and a $2 million bond sale. The remaining $3.5 million is being raised by the Three Rivers Endowment Trust through donations from college supporters, community members, Raiders fans and organizations such as the Booster Club.

rcampbell@semissourian.com

388-3639