When the 700 students of Benld Elementary headed home on a Friday back in March 2009, they never expected they’d be saying goodbye to their school forever. Less than 24 hours later, the building looked like an earthquake had hit- the cracked, twisted walls and sinking floors led to inspectors immediately condemning the seven year-old school. Benld Elementary had been built on top of a coal mine. But Benld’s hometown, rural Gillespie, Illinois, isn’t one to throw in the towel. Its residents are on a mission to get their school rebuilt starting with a $250,000 Pepsi Refresh grant they’ll use to fund architectural blueprints for a brand new building.
Gillespie’s located about an hour northeast of St. Louis, Missouri in an area heavily mined from the 1800’s to the mid-1950’s for its enormous coal reserves. Gillespie’s Superintendent Paul Skeans says the mines are between 350-450 feet underground and although most are no longer active, they’re still making an impact on the town.
Benld Elementary passed all required ground stability tests before construction began. Skeans says damage elsewhere in the area’s underground network of tunnels had a ripple effect on the school’s foundations, leading to the catastrophic structural damage.
In the aftermath of the destruction, the school district made keeping kids safe and on track academically its highest priority. The Thursday after the school’s unforeseen demise, Skeans says Gillespie officials developed a double shift at the district’s secondary school. Older students headed to school at 6:15 in the morning and went home around noon, and the elementary kids came in around 1:00 and left at 5:30. Last November, students finally moved into portable classroom buildings, but Skeans says there was, “Never any doubt we’d rebuild, no matter what.”
The cost to build a new school runs a whopping $22 million dollars, and although the State of Illinois funds 75%, the school district has to come up with the rest of the cash. William Bertetto, a member of the Ben-Gil Boosters, a community organization of parents and educators dedicated to rebuilding the school, applied for the Pepsi Refresh grant, and the entire community banded together to get out the vote. “We did everything we could to get votes,” says Skeans. “Emails, our Facebook page, rallies and the support of other projects in the running all helped us get the grant.”
After finding out they were finalists, the Ben-Gil Boosters asked the Gillespie School District to oversee the administration of the Pepsi Refresh grant money. Superintendent Skeans says it’ll probably take another two to three years to complete the school so they’re using the grant to fund the architectural blueprints.
Despite the adversity the community’s faced, Skeans says, “Nobody’s complaining or yelling. We just all work together. Rebuilding is a community effort. We’re thrilled that Pepsi’s now a part of our re-building team.”
