My daily routine on Thursday’s is to come home from school and kick back with the Hammonton Gazette. Being up to date with the town’s news has always been a priority of mine. I have always felt that being ignorant to my surroundings is a very harmful and detrimental way to live our lives; for the reason being that we do not have the information to draw up rational conclusions that could either benefit or hurt the taxpayers of this town.

That being said, I picked up Volume 8 – Issue 7 of the Hammonton Gazzete, where reporter Paul Macrie detailed out Councilman Gribbin’s proposal of an indoor recreational facility.

After a quarter of the way through reading the article, I grew increasingly more and more excited for this project. The article outlined possibilites for a few football fields, a couple baseball fields, and even an Olympic sized pool: all under the same roof.

As an active person, I have always been frustrated with living in a cold state and living in a town where I have to wait motionless for months to just go outside and be active. Cabin Fever, although not legally diagnosable, is a very real disease and takes hold of many citizens in Hammonton.

This project will do much more than just quell the epidemic of cabin fever, however.

Towns all over South Jersey will break down the doors with teams trying to practice through the cold winter months. Private teams will flock to Hammonton once this facility opens its doors. Why is this so beneficial? It will bring great business to our great business owners here in Hammonton.

After every practice, after every scrimmage, after every game, the teams will swarm either the Silver Coin, West End Bar and Grill, Ninos Pizza-Rama, and many more. The best way we can give back to our businesses is to provide another avenue for tourists to come through Hammonton. When our businesses thrive, Hammonton thrives.

Even on a more local level, our town will utilize the facility for almost every sport.

When it rains in little league baseball, the game is cancelled and schedules will have to be shifted. Needless to say, 11-year-olds aren’t the ones taking off from work making sure they can take their son or daughter to their games. While I understand that weather cannot be controlled, but any amount of hours that are taken away from work means less leniency in the budget for many families. If this indoor facility has a baseball field (made for the various dimensions of little league fields), then the game would just be relocated to the indoor field. The kids wouldn’t be disappointed, and the volunteer coaches and parents would not have to rearrange their schedules.

Indeed, there are benefits if this indoor facility came into reality.

I understand the concerns for funding this project — taxes. However, if possible, private grants and donations are most assuredly going to alleviate the immense cost of the project.

The beauty of this idea is that it isn’t like a vacuum salesman going door-to-door and not taking “no” for an answer. The product that we as a town would be selling is one that would benefit almost everyone.

Thoughts on this proposal are varied throughout the hallways of Hammonton, but senior Louis Corgliano is excited about the proposed indoor track that this facilitly will hold.

“One of the things I hate about runing is dealing with the weather. When it snows, I run. When it is 100 degrees out, I run,” he said. “Running in extreme conditions does help me train to a certain extent, but having a nice indoor track to always rely on does sound good to me.”

Gina Siconolfi, being an avid swimmer, was also excited about the prospect.

“I was so disappointed that they cut the swimming team here. I love to swim and it’s what I’m really good at. So the swimming pool that will go into this thing does really appeal to me; I can’t wait,” she said.

However, there are a few concerns with the proposal.

Hammonton already has a privately-owned indoor training faciltiy called The Sportz Centre. This facility is owned and operated by the family of senior Christopher Caprio. father. Concerns exist that a town facility will affect the business. Hammonton, like many towns, takes great pride in its family-owned businesses.

Many students and patrons of the facility are consequently against the proposal.

“Chris is our friend and that’s who we want to give our money to. He and his family work hard maintaining [The Sportz Centre]  and their hard work shouldn’t be rewarded with the town taking away their business,” explained senior David Maimone and Matt Matro, in a joint interview.

“I was there from the start when his dad first opened that up for the Stars (baseball team). Being his friend I saw that get bigger and bigger,” explained senior Brandon Alfonso.

Caprio, whose family operates The Sportz Centre, is proud of the business that he helps by working at.

“My dad worked hard to get what he has, and that facility is packed every night with every sport. Yeah we know it’s small, but we made it successful with what we had,” he said.

If you are for it or against it, please let your voice be heard. This proposal will affect everyone in thise town either way.