By By ANDY HAMILTON / Niles Daily Star
NILES – The Ferry Street School Community Resource Center offers programs year-round, but often times the weather conditions make sitting inside the old school house difficult.
Lisa Busby, director of the Ferry Street School, and Fort St. Joseph Museum Director Carol Bainbridge are heading a fundraiser to purchase a new heating, ventilating and air conditioning system for the historic schoolhouse. The port-a-chicken cookout is being held Saturday, March 31, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Harding's Market, 407 Broadway, Niles.
Presale tickets are $5. A meal the day of the cookout is $5.50.
Tickets can be purchased at Ferry Street School, 620 Ferry St.; the Fort St. Joseph Museum, 508 E. Main St.; and Tippy Toes, 127 E. Main St., Suite 4.
"People would really come in and say, 'it's hotter in here than it is outside,'" Busby recalled about last summer. "We did ultimately have to close down for a couple days because of the heat.
"I have a full schedule lined up this summer for the youth and the adults," she added.
Ferry Street School is home to a number of after school programs for local youths and is a Niles site for Michigan Work First. Busby also said she has been approached by other agencies to use the Ferry Street School, including a local Girl Scouts troop.
With a new heating and air conditioning system, Bainbridge said she is hoping to use the historic Ferry Street School as a site to host more Niles history programs.
"This system will make this building useable year-round," Bainbridge said.
Ferry Street School needs about $10,000 to purchase the new heating, ventilating and air conditioning system. Some private donations have already been made, but Busby and Bainbridge are hoping for a big turnout for the port-a-chicken.
"We are not halfway there," Busby said.