The new hardwood floor appears to be a reality for Davidson School’s main gym thanks in large part to last Wednesday’s hugely successful “Jail and Bail” fund-raiser.

Sandra Baldwin, a grades 10 to 12 math and science teacher at the school, said the “prisoners” raised $26,000 at the event, which had 17 locals locked up in classrooms at the school desperately working the phones to try and raise bail money. She said $13,000 came in physically through cheques and cash, while another $13,000 was pledged.

“If the money from the pledges come in that will bring us pretty close to $37,000,” said Baldwin. “We’ll be right there.”

The school started a Sea of Blue campaign last month to try and raise $40,000 by next March so they can upgrade from a rubberized floor in the main gym to a hardwood one. The Sun West School Division will replace the floor next summer and the school was given the option to upgrade if they could raise the additional money that a hardwood floor would cost.

Davidson School kids and teachers started a “Buy A Tile” campaign where 4,000 tiles from the old gym floor would be sold for $10 each. In just less than two months, the campaign raised over $10,000. Once all the money from the pledges are forwarded to the school or the prisoners, the school can send it on to the school division coming close to their final goal.

“The ‘Jail and Bail’ exceeded any of our expectations,” said Baldwin. “People had a great time with the kids. It was so much better than anything we could have imagined.”

Local school kids and even an abiding RCMP officer rounded up the prisoners by force or they could just turn themselves in at the school at the start of afternoon classes. They were then given a bail kit, a nametag and a card that read out their offence, before being led to their cells of school classrooms where they had to work the phones in trying to raise bail.

To read more please see the Oct. 29 print edition of The Davidson Leader.