Youth football league honors Holley Buildings & Grounds Department
Provided photo: Robin Silvis, a member of the Holley Board of Education, is pictured with John Sherman at last week’s BOE meeting in Holley.
HOLLEY – The Holley Central School District Buildings & Grounds Department has been honored by a youth football league for its upkeep of its playing fields.
Holley recently was awarded the Jim Ellegate Memorial Award by the Niagara Orleans Football Association. The award was presented to John Sherman, the district’s director of facilities, during the regular meeting of the Board of Education on Nov. 21.
Robin Silvis, vice president of the Board of Education, presented Sherman with the award. She explained that Jim Ellegate was a football coach for the Roy-Hart Rams Beginner Football Team. He tragically lost his life coming home from a football game.
“He was a man that gave freely of his time, not only volunteering to coach football, but he was involved in coaching baseball and was also a Cub Scout leader,” Silvis said. “With Jim’s passing, the Niagara Orleans Football Association executive board and its commissioners wanted to keep his spirit alive, and this is how the Jim Ellegate Memorial Award was created. This award is given to a person or an organization that shows their passion for the love of the game and for the love of the children.”
The Holley Central School District Buildings & Grounds Department was nominated for the award by the Eastern Orleans Jr. Hawks because of “stellar conditions of not only the youth football field on district grounds, but for our district facility as a whole,” Silvis says. “It is very well maintained, clean, and a very welcoming facility that shows much hard work and dedication by those that take care of it, and demonstrate the ultimate in Holley pride.”
The Buildings & Grounds Department supports our community’s youth by going beyond their job expectations, putting in a lot of extra time.
“Our football fields and the areas surrounding always are top notch,” Silvas said. “They made it possible for our youth to not only play on beautiful grounds, but they made it so that we have a portable scoreboard for each contest, which is absolutely outstanding. This team always had the cheer mats available for our cheerleaders and seamlessly made everything available to these youth.”
Silvis adds that the district is very fortunate to have such hard working and dedicated people caring for its buildings and grounds.
