By Chris Chaney
Sun staff

Batavia High School is taking it upon itself to make improvements to its athletic facilities, thinking outside the box to accumulate the funds necessary to give their student-athletes the best playing surfaces available.

As such, the Batavia Athletic Boosters will host the first annual Bulldog Social on Nov. 8 at the Elks Run Golf Clubhouse.

“We’ve attended a few other schools’ sports stags and in a day where people are trying to sell things for fundraising efforts, it kind of gets old and tired, so we’re trying to find a new way to raise money by not selling things,” Batavia head baseball coach and fundraising coordinator Geoff Carter said. “We want to have a get-together where alumni, families in the community and faculty all come together to celebrate while at the same time having one of our biggest fundraisers.”

The Social, which Carter said will become an annual event, will begin at 7 p.m. and feature both live and silent auctions, an open bar and dinner. Tickets for the event cost $50 per person and tables of eight can be reserved for $400.

With 150 tickets available initially, Carter said that the response from the community has been consistent and encouraging, noting that only 30 tickets remain with a few weeks until the event.

Sticking to the outside the box theme of the evening, Carter said he and the planning staff wanted to give event goers a different array of options for which they can lend their support.

“We’re going to have quite a few autographs. The Bengals were kind enough to send us pictures autographed by AJ Green, Andy Dalton and Domata Peko as well as football autographed by Rey Maualuga,” Carter said. “We’ll have a Pete Rose autographed picture; a lot of sports stuff. (There will be) a brand new set of golf clubs, a trip to Arizona at a golf resort. And then the boosters have done a good job of putting together a lot of themed baskets that can be bid on.

“We’re also getting all of the teams involved having each one put together a night out basket — tickets to a movie, restaurant gift cards and a hotel stay.”

All of the money put towards the array of auction items will be used by the Boosters Association to upgrade the facilities that have been in use since the campus opened in 1997.

Carter explained that the top priority of the incoming cash flow would be an upgrade to the school track as well as installing artificial field turf in Holman Stadium.

“The first big thing is that we have to upgrade our playing surface on the football field because it will open up so many avenues for almost all of our outdoor sports — even stuff for baseball where we can practice on (the artificial turf) if we get rained out,” he said. “We’re almost behind (in terms of facilities) compared with some schools in our league and in the county. There’s not many natural surfaces left and you fall behind and waste money taking care of that stuff.

“(Going forward), we’re going to try to make one big improvement each year. It could be fencing around the baseball or softball fields, or making the fencing around the football field nicer, press box improvements, et cetera.”

For questions, comments or how to make a donation, you can contact Angie Kennedy at ajk22@icloud.com or 513-256-6766, Ben Stewart, BHS athletic director, at stewart_b@bataviaschools.org or 513-73202341, Donna Browning, athletic booster president, at donnabrowning99@yahoo.com or 513-706-4421 or Geoff Carter at carter_g@bataviaschools.org or 513-732-2341.