Fund-Raiser Planned for Pierce College Pool

The Pierce College pool’s pump is just about pooped. And its “Friends” are trying to help.

Fred Shaw, a Woodland Hills resident and pool enthusiast, said the pump and filtration systems in the college pool have never lasted more than three years. Because the current ones were installed more than three years ago, the members of the Friends of Pierce Pool organization, which was founded in 1992, believe they are on borrowed time.

“We’re biting our nails, hoping it doesn’t go out until we can have our next fund-raiser,” said Shaw, who is membership director of the group. “We’re suspecting it will go soon.”

In addition to the Pierce College men’s and women’s swim programs, the pool houses the aquatic programs for four area high schools--El Camino, Taft, Chaminade and Crespi Carmelite--and it’s open to local residents for recreational swimming and swim lessons. Up to 800 people use the pool every day, Shaw said.

The Friends organization has, over the years, raised enough funds to replace the pool’s heater, lighting structures and other parts. It has also paid for needed repairs and preventive maintenance.

Members of the group don’t want to see a repeat of a nine-month shutdown in 1993, when the pool was closed because of a “dinosaur of a boiler,” said Eldin Onsgard, aquatics supervisor.

“We had a boiler that was a fossil,” he said. “And it finally refused to work anymore.” The group is trying to prevent the same thing from happening to the filtration system.

“With college cutbacks, if something big goes, we have to wait who knows how long before it would open again,” Shaw said.

Friends of Pierce Pool will have a fund-raiser swim-a-thon on Sunday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. This year, the group hopes to raise $10,000, twice what would be needed to replace the pump and filtration systems. For information about the fund-raiser, call (818) 347-8075.