Group hopes to fund Libertyville HS gallery

A group of volunteers hopes to convert a conference room at Libertyville High School into a gallery to showcase student artwork.

Members of the Libertyville Wildcats Fine Arts Foundation hope to raise most of the $249,000 officials estimate the project will cost.

The Libertyville-Vernon Hills Area High School District 128 board may consider kicking in $62,000 to help the cause, said Yasmine Dada, the district's assistant superintendent for business, but only if the group raises the rest of the money first.

"They know, until you tell us differently, that you will not move this project forward," Dada told the school board's facility and finance committee Monday night during a brief discussion of the plan.

The group is planning a May fundraiser and aims to open the gallery ready sometime during the 2009-10 school year, Dada said.

If the plan moves forward, it would be the latest community-funded improvement project at a District 128 campus.

The foundation partially funded an overhaul of the school's auditorium in 2007.

Local residents and business owners also paid for the installation of an artificial-turf football field at Libertyville High in 2005, which cost $561,000.

At sister school Vernon Hills High, volunteers last year raised money to replace the grass infield on the varsity baseball field with artificial turf. The district paid for most of the roughly $252,000 project.

Such partnerships with the community free up taxpayer dollars for other projects, said District 128 Superintendent Prentiss Lea.

Others benefiting from similar community fundraising efforts include schools in Lake Zurich and the Barrington area.