Education

Mattituck grads can now have their name on a brick at the HS

TIM KELLY FILE PHOTO | New bricks with the names of Mattituck alumni will help raise funds for athletic programs at the high school.

To raise money for the athletic department and build a courtyard for students to relax during lunchtime and at soccer games, the Mattituck sports boosters club is selling the right to place alumni names on 4,500 bricks at the high school this year.

The Mattituck High School alumni brick garden, as it will be called, will be outside the boosters’ “snack shack,” a trailer on the west side of the school outside the gym where food and drink are sold during soccer games.

“Half of it will be a brick patio and half will be blacktop with four or five round steel plastic-coated picnic tables,” said booster club president Joseph Doorhy. He’s having a landscape designer draft a plan for the project. “The tables will provide seating for spectators and we’re hoping that some of the kids will remain on campus for lunch time and utilize those tables for lunch.”

Mattituck High grads and grads-to-be will be eligible to have their names put on bricks, and the courtyard can be expanded in the future as more students pass through the school.

The booster club plans to spend this year selling the naming rights. Bricks of four inches-by-eight inches sell for $100 and eight-by-eight inch bricks are $175.

Brick order forms can be picked up at Mattituck High School and at Cutchogue East Elementary School, and will soon be available on the school’s website at mufsd.com.

Mr. Doorhy said that for an additional $25 people who buy bricks can add a symbol representing the sport they played at Mattituck. Contractors who donate to the project will receive an eight by eight inch brick with their name on it.

The booster club plans to use the money raised to fund the school’s athletic program. This year the group plans to renovate the trophy case in the gym lobby and replace the felt banners hanging in the gymnasium with new vinyl banners. The group also recently purchased more weight room equipment and is putting TV monitors throughout the school to display game schedules.

The booster club has more than 80 volunteers who distribute healthy snacks to athletes after school, fill the vending machines in the school lobby and volunteer at the snack shack.

“What makes the booster club so successful is we have a very young, energetic athletic director. He’s all there for the kids,” Mr. Doorhy said of Gregg Wormuth, the school’s athletic director for the past two years. “Any time the booster club does stuff, he’s right there helping us make it easier and better.”

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