Dave Alley
VANDENBERG VILLAGE, Calif. (KEYT) – The long-planned goal to renovate and remake the Cabrillo High School stadium is pushing forward with a renewed community drive.
Two years ago, the Cabrillo Athletic Field and Track Fundraising Committee (CAFTFC) organized to help remake the aging facility that is essentially no longer usable for any of the school’s athletic teams or the award-winning marching band.
“It’s in pretty poor shape,” said Cabrillo High School senior Asher Jones. “It’s not uncommon to kind of have to dodge around gopher holes in the track itself and there’s a lot of dirt patches around. Sports teams will not practice on this field. It’s just not safe for players. And soccer varsity doesn’t play up here. You won’t have any football practices up here and you won’t have track meets up here because it’s not regulation.”
As a result of its current condition, the stadium is vastly underutilized, with its most most significant usage coming only once a year during graduation ceremonies.
With a goal toward revitalizing the facility, CAFTFC was formed to help raise the needed funds to finance the multi-million dollar construction project.
“This fundraising effort is going to put in a synthetic turf field, a seven lane all-weather track and a new scoreboard,” said Dan Duffy, CAFTFC Assistant Director. “That’s all we’re doing for this part of the process right now. Obviously, there’s more that can be done or should be done or may be done, but right now it’s the field, the track, and the scoreboard.”
The current cost of the project is estimated to be approximately $4.2 million, which will be evenly split between CAFTFC and the Lompoc Unified School District.
“We believe that our students here at Cabrillo High School deserve to have their own facility, something that they can take pride in,” said Doug Sorum, Lompoc Unified School District Assistant Superintendent Business Services. “We have a set of DSA (Division of State Architect) plans for the upgrades at this facility. They’re very similar to what was done at Lompoc Community Track and Field and so we have structured the project to be, a 50/50 shared project, much like we did with Lompoc Community Track and Field.”
In 2021, a similar community effort was completed at Huyck Stadium at Lompoc High School, which funded a modernization of the facility, including the installation of a nine-lane CIF-regulation rubberized track, artificial turf playing surface, outdoor exercise area, water bottle refill stations and a paved, landscaped entrance.
The cost of the project was nearly $4 million. The Lompoc Unified School District (LUSD) contributed $2.2 million, while the community raised nearly $1.7 million.
With the Cabrillo stadium unusable for most practices and any competitive event, it has forced students, families and spectators to travel to Huyck Stadium several miles away for activities.
“It’s really inconvenient,” said Jones. “It would be great for the student population if we could have games hosted on campus. Then we could have students get out of class and just walk down to the game and go watch it and support their school. A lot of students don’t see these sports. They don’t see track meets. They don’t see football games because it’s not on campus, so that’s also going to make athletic involvement take a big hit. When people don’t see sports that they can do, they’re not going to do those sports.”
With the LUSD set to contribute half of needed funds, CAFTFC needs to raise the other $2.1 million.
According to Duffy, the fundraising effort has collected about $200,000 to date, leaving a significant amount that is still needed to be raised.
However, the group has received a major shot in the arm with the announcement the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians will match up to $500,000 that is raised by CAFTFC.
Since the Chumash announced the match, the group has raised $84,000, so $416,000 is now needed to be raised in order to receive the full match from the Chumash.
In order to hit that goal, CAFTFC is now beginning a re-energized effort to help raise the necessary funds to meet the Chumash match, as well as push the overall amount of funds needed across the finish line.
“The key goal right now is to meet the match,” said Duffy. “Once we do that, we think we’ll get momentum going. It’s a three pronged attack. It’s private, donors, alumni donors. And now we also have a couple people on board on our committee that have experience as grant writers. So we’re going to be seeking some grant opportunities.”
Duffy indicated CAFTFC will team up with the Lompoc Chamber of Commerce, to begin what he said will be a “community blitz,” asking local businesses, along with local residents to contribute to the cause.
“We’re going to go into the businesses and we’re going to do the ask,” said Duffy. “We’re going to get out there and knock on doors and do the asking. We’re going to ask them waht can you do to help us out? It’s going to come with some sponsorship opportunities for those businesses to get their logos on the field. Once we’re all done, they’ll be able to use that as an advertising tool. We know a lot of places have advertising budgets that that can they can draw from and that’ll be a great plus for us.”
Similar to the Lompoc Community Track and Field at Huyck Stadium, both the CAFTFC and LUSD point on the renovations will not only benefit Cabrillo High School students, but also the surrounding community as well.
“At the Lompoc Community Track and Field, we have community hours in the morning, Monday through Friday in the afternoon, as well as on Saturday,” said Sorum. “We would do the same here.”
Duffy added a renovated facility would allow it to be utilized for many different usages for people of all ages across the area.
“The plan is to have people walking the track and doing things when it’s dry and safe,” said Duffy. “We want to have the Vandenberg Village and Mission Hills community have the ability to come up here and enjoy the youth football games, youth soccer games, potentially. It will be a community wide based facility that can be used.”
As for the future, Duffy pointed out other amenities may be considered, but will be completely separate from this phase.
“There’s more that can be done, certainly,” said Duffy. “Press box, would be a plus. A concession stand would be great. Bleacher improvements would probably be in the mix down the road, but that’s for the next generation of fundraisers. This is the key thing. This is the big puppy to get this done and get it in place and then we can work around it.”
The initial goal was to have the renovations completed by the 60th anniversary of the school, which is this current school year.
Now, the group is crossing its fingers it can achieve full funding as quickly as possible.
“Hopeful for me is yesterday,” said Duffy. “But I’m thinking six to eight months we can complete. I think we can get that done and we can get this started sometime in the 2027 school year.”
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