Residents Raise $20,000 for Glen Ellyn Indoor Pool Study

A grassroots group of Glen Ellyn residents advocating for an indoor pool in the Village has independently raised $20,000 to be put towards a Glen Ellyn Park District feasibility study on the proposal, the Daily Herald reports. 

According to the paper, the Glen Ellyn Aquatics Initiative, founded late last year, has taken up the cause of bringing a year-round pool to the “aquatics desert” of Glen Ellyn, an area lacking in large indoor swim facilities; the fundraising was boosted significantly by a July “Swimathon” held by the Glen Ellyn Gators swim program. 

"This is about year-round fitness, recreation and sport for the residents—and not just 'we need a place for our high school swimmers,'” GEAI organizer Rob Pieper told the paper. "It's where we need the conversation to stay. It is an important facility for the needs of everybody, from the youngest infant and child up to seniors in our community.

"There's been no formal group to really get behind until now. Many of us are sick of complaining about this, (so we said) let's try to make something of it and get some answers we need in order to build the case for a pool." 

Glen Ellyn Park District Executive Director Davis Harris called the group’s campaign “remarkable,” the paper said, and recognized the interest, though cautioned that prior attempts over the past 25 years to bring an indoor pool to the Village have collapsed on cost (over $5 million, by some estimates). 

Currently, Glen Ellyn only has a single outdoor swim facility: the Park District’s Sunset Pool complex in Sunset Park. 

Read the full story at the Daily Herald website.