Construction To Begin on New Dining Hall

It’s the moment you’ve been waiting for! The new SFCH dining hall project begins in July, and we have planned carefully so that everyone remains well fed.

Here’s how it’s going to work:

• Survey work; temporary fence will be placed around the work site and construction staging area (located on ball field area—on the grass but not on the track or ball field).

• Construction equipment will arrive on site. The existing Haugo Dining Hall will be demolished.

• Dining services will be temporarily relocated into the north half of the gym, with the curtain lowered to separate both sides. We will use Lifescape for most food prep; noon meals Monday through Friday will be fully cooked and ready to serve. Outside of these meals, dining staff will share the kitchen at Children’s Home Shelter for Family Safety.

• The racquetball court will be used for dining equipment and storage, with items placed into temporary storage provided on campus. If you have any items stored in the racquetball court, please remove them before June.

• During the construction project, school buses will use the south entrance, driving north as far as possible to the construction zone, picking up students, then turning around and exiting out the south driveway. Students will exit the building from the south side and use the sidewalk to get to the buses. Basically, we will use the parking lot between the concrete stairs and the ball field as the pickup and drop-off point for the day students.

• Part of this project includes adding a canopy and circular driveway in front of the east-facing Van Demark building entrance for safer and more convenient student drop-offs. We are hoping this will be constructed concurrently with the dining hall project. When the drop-off area is under construction, the main east-facing entrance will be closed off.

This is an exciting project for Children’s Home Society. It will affect and hopefully improve the daily lives of students and staff. We ask for your patience as we complete demolition and construction.

If you have any questions, please contact Jeff Bass or Brad Hansen.