The First "Real" Home Game

Last Tuesday saw the first home game on Trinity's campus. Because of the historic achievements of last year's girls varsity soccer team, it was decided the honor would go to them to play the first game on our fields. After a time of prayer and reflection on the work to get us here, I was asked to cut a ribbon held by current and previous soccer coaches, and the game began.

Thanks to so many of you who came out to celebrate the opening with us. For a game in early March, the weather was beautiful and the field looked great. I chatted with the referees during half-time and they remarked that it was one of the nicest fields they had seen in our area.

Once the game started, the big question was "who would be the first person to score a goal on Trinty's campus?" The suspense wouldn't last long. A couple minutes into the game, Olivia DelGrosso made a great breakaway run and kicked a great shot at the goal. The ball hit the top beam of the goal and bounced right towards an alert Jamie Myers who kicked it into the goal. The historic photo to the left shows the first official goal on Trinity's fields. Goal by Jamie Myers with assist by Olivia DelGrosso. The girls went on to defeat Franklin Academy by a score of 10-0.




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Lift Station Progress

Trinity's campus was designed to tie into the city of Raleigh's sewer system. The problem is that system is uphill from us, which requires a lift station to move our wastewater up to their system. When we sold part of our land to the Wyndcroft developers, they agreed to build this lift station for use by their homeowners, and to allow Trinity to tie into it.

Since Wyndcroft started their project significantly after us, they have not yet completed the lift station. This means that since Trinity opened, we have been depending on two large septic tanks and a service that pumps the tanks empty weekly and transports it by truck to the wastewater plant on the other side of the county (I wrote more about this here).

Well, the construction you've been hearing through the woods west of our campus is the work on this lift station. The station is nearly complete now, but is awaiting electrical service. We hope to see the system up and running later this spring.

This sewer system is also the reason we had heavy excavation equipment on the land a couple months ago. To open the school, we only need our sewer line to extend to the tanks we're using. Once school was opened and critical needs addressed, Mammoth got to work laying the rest of our line through the woods and down the hill to the lift station.

Work on The Football Field and Track

Let me start with a belated THANK YOU to a generous donor who offered to pay for a track around our football field. The track is made with "screenings" -- fine gravel dust -- that will continue to compact and take shape with use. Eventually this track will be replaced with a competition rubberized track, but currently it will serve as a great place for our students to exercise.

After the heavy rains in January, we discovered a problem: the water that was running off the field was being held in by our new track and making swampy areas around the outside of the track. To fix this, we had Troy Early and his team install a french drain around the whole border of the field and track. The drain connects to the rest of our water drainage system so we should be able to move all that runoff water down to the lake, where it will be used to irrigate the fields in the summer. You can see where the drain was installed by a sandy area about 1 foot wide inside the track. In the spring, the bermuda grass will spread to grow over that sand, and our drain will be virtually invisible -- but no less effective.

While Troy was digging this drain, we also had him install additional sprinkler heads along the edge of the track. You may have noticed that our field was brown along the outside edges last year even when the center of the field was green. This is because we tried to save money by using fewer sprinkler heads. Our experience last fall made it clear these heads were needed. Now that they are installed, we can look forward to a lush green field growing up to the edge of our track.

The Bluebird Trail

One of the things I love about the Trinity community is how sometimes people don't even have to be asked to help, they see something that would bless the school and take the initiative.

This happened recently when the families of second graders created a bluebird trail on Trinity's campus. Jane Currin and her husband are part of the NC Bluebird Society and used their knowledge and experience to develop a proposed map of birdhouse locations. I met with her on campus to discuss where future construction might be and where buried utilities are to make sure her plan took these things into account. Then, the parents build and installed the birdhouses last month.

Apparently, the birds approve of their work because I saw a bluebird checking out the house near the walkway to the lower school just this past Saturday. Thanks to the second grade families!

TrinityRising Returns!

When I wrote the post about the golf tournament near the beginning of the school year, I hadn't planned on it being the final post on Trinityrising for awhile, but many things I'd been putting off during construction caught up with me. Anyway, while you shouldn't expect posts at nearly the pace of last summer, I'll try to keep you more up to date.