Lendt, who served as the first Board of Education student ex-officio member at WACS delivered her comments at the district’s official Capital Project Groundbreaking on last month.

Lendt’s sentiments were shared by WACS Superintendent Ryan Sikorski, Board of Education President Wendy Dyment and Facilities Committee and board member Tom Tarpley, who all spoke at the ceremony.

Sikorski spoke of how the $23.5 million project has been in the works for years. “Great projects don’t begin with blueprints, they begin with need,” he said. “For years, students and staff showed up every single day in spaces that were asking more of them than they deserved to give.”

Sikorski described athletic facilities that had aged well beyond their useful life, as well as classrooms and learning spaces which were struggling to keep pace with the way education has evolved.

WACS Superintendent Ryan Sikorski leads several elementary students in the groundbreaking ceremony for the Capital Improvement Project.

The journey to this moment was a long one, Sikorski said. “It required honest assessment of facilities, difficult budget conversations, community forums and a willingness to think boldly about what our school should look like, not just today, but 20 years from now,” he said.

When Sikorski became Superintendent of WACS eight months ago, he said he realized it was his job to carry the project through. “I inherited this project, and from the very first day, I understood that what I was inheriting wasn’t just a construction plan,” he said. “I was inheriting a promise that this community had already made to its students.”

Sikorski thanked those who had the foresight to begin this project and also those who are currently involved in it — the Board of Education, the staff at WACS, the students and the community. “It is a great time to be a Wolverine!” he said. “Thank you to the Westfield community for all of your support of our Capital Project.”

Sikorski stressed the groundbreaking was much more than simply the beginning of construction. “I want you to feel what this moment is. It is a promise kept by a community that believed and carried forward by people committed to seeing it through,” he said. “It is what is possible when we come together around the most important work there is: the education and well-being of our children.”

In her comments, Dyment also spoke about the vision that the groundbreaking ceremony marked. “We are not just renovating our existing fields and buffing up our campus; we are aiming to create a modern learning environment where what students learn and practice inside the building is supported by what students learn and practice outside the building, as well,” she said.

Dyment said the groundbreaking ceremony was a “testament” to what can happen when a community works together. “This new facility is a promise to our students and families that we are committed to providing them with the best opportunities to achieve their goals and reach their full potential,” she said.

Tarpley’s comments focused on the groundbreaking ceremony as a milestone in the district’s history. He stated that for years student athletes excelled in many sports despite having an outdated athletic complex.

“All that changes on this beautiful spring evening,” Tarpley said. “Thanks to the vision and hard work of all those who love and believe in this school, and to all those who have made a financial commitment to give our students the facility they deserve, this generation of student athletes, as well as future generation, will be able to showcase their talents on a field and surface they can be proud of.”

The groundbreaking, itself, was a lighthearted event, with first the Board of Education members coming forward to throw shovels full of earth, followed by the student ex-officio board members doing the same. And, finally, several elementary students joined Sikorski in tossing their own shovels full of soil.

Lendt’s words encapsulated the feeling shared by everyone at the ceremony. “Our dreams, our potential, our future today is about what we believe as a community,” she said. “We’re not just starting construction, we are building possibilities.”