Left to Right: Kasey Stramel, Paul Medra­no, Antho­ny Rubal

Good­land, KS — The bas­ket­ball courts behind West Ele­men­tary School just got a major upgrade. Thanks to a $5,000 grant from the Sher­man Coun­ty Com­mu­ni­ty Foun­da­tion, the City of Good­land has installed two brand-new, adjustable bas­ket­ball goals—perfect for both younger stu­dents and the com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers who love to play there.

The idea for the project came from Paul Medra­no, a mem­ber of the Good­land Ballers—a group of vet­er­an hoop­sters who meet up week­ly dur­ing warm weath­er to shoot hoops and relive their glo­ry days. Medra­no reached out to SCCF Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Tina Wolak to learn how to make the project hap­pen. Soon after, Wolak, Medra­no, and City Man­ag­er Kent Brown met to dis­cuss the oppor­tu­ni­ty, and the rest is his­to­ry.

With help from the City of Good­land Parks Depart­ment and sev­er­al mem­bers of the West Ballers, the new goals were recent­ly installed and are already get­ting plen­ty of use.

“These courts are a true gath­er­ing spot,” said Wolak. “You’ll see kids from West School, fam­i­lies, and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers of all ages out there. It’s a great exam­ple of what can hap­pen when some­one has an idea and the com­mu­ni­ty ral­lies around it.”

The new adjustable goals make it eas­i­er for younger play­ers to join in on the fun, ensur­ing the courts remain a place for every­one to play—for years to come.

SCCF accepts grant appli­ca­tions from eli­gi­ble non­prof­its on a rolling month­ly basis, with the final day of each month serv­ing as the dead­line for review dur­ing the fol­low­ing month’s board meet­ing. Grants are avail­able in the cat­e­gories of edu­ca­tion, health­care, social ser­vices and secu­ri­ty, con­ser­va­tion and envi­ron­ment, arts and cul­ture, and com­mu­ni­ty beau­ti­fi­ca­tion. Appli­ca­tion infor­ma­tion can be found at www.shermanccf.org.

SCCF is an affil­i­ate of the Greater North­west Kansas Com­mu­ni­ty Foun­da­tion based in Bird City. The foun­da­tion seeks to encour­age, pru­dent­ly man­age, and dis­trib­ute char­i­ta­ble con­tri­bu­tions to improve the qual­i­ty of life of Sher­man Coun­ty res­i­dents, now and in the future. To learn more, con­tact Wolak at 785–728‑7800, director@shermanccf.org or vis­it www.shermanccf.org. Con­nect with SCCF at www.facebook.com/shermanccf.