The auditorium at Barnesville High School was in need of an upgrade. As it stood, the seats were beyond worn out, being in the building since its inception. As a result, district funds were scarce when it came to having the budget to make changes to their building. Consequently, Principal Ron Clark looked into grant options that allow for funding for new auditorium seating and became informed of opportunities to apply ESSER (Elementary & Secondary School Emergency Relief) Funds to cover the cost for the new seats.
After a couple of months of radio silence, Barnesville High School heard back that the ESSER funds became approved to go towards new auditorium seating for their facility. At that time, Mr. Clark reached out to Farnham Equipment Company to remove the existing seats and install new seats for their High School.
In the fall of 2021, Farnham Equipment’s in-house Service Technicians installed new seating for this facility. The auditorium was fitted with 524 new fully upholstered traditional Quattro chairs from Hussey Seating Company.
As a whole, this project is a great example of how districts with limited funds can use available COVID-19 funding to improve their facilities. For COVID-19 purposes, Barnesville chose to use language surrounding social distancing and spaced-out seating for their students for funding approval. As a result, they were able to finally renovate their auditorium for their students.
A short video from Principal Ron Clark is available for viewing below.
