Red Sandstone students in Vail finally see their fundraising efforts pay off with new basketball court

When the new Red Sandstone parking structure was completed in 2018, it was touted as a project in which community partners came together to solve a problem.

Unsaid at the time was the fact that the parking garage had created a new problem for the kids at Red Sandstone Elementary School: Their recess grounds no longer contained any paved surfaces.

“Think back to your elementary school playground,” former Red Sandstone PTO president Dudley Williams said on Thursday. “I bet you all had a place to bounce a ball.”

A fundraiser to create a place for kids to bounce balls was initiated during the 2021-22 school year, with Red Sandstone students raising thousands of dollars and meeting their fundraising goal.

Charley McElduff was in first grade at the time and was the top fundraiser in his class. He said he contacted friends and family members across the country in an effort to see a new basketball court paved on his playground.

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“We were supposed to get the court the next year, and then the year after that,” he said.

Four years went by, and Charley was beginning to wonder if the court construction was going to happen. In that time, the school had received a new principal, Anne Heckman, who said the project just needed to be nudged across the finish line.

“The PTO had fundraised a very significant amount of money, we just had to find a way to make it happen,” she said.

Former Vail Town Council member Kevin Foley helped with the government process part of the project, and Mike Haase with Double M Asphalt laid down the blacktop.

“No job is too small for Double M,” Heckman said.

Original squad

On Thursday, Foley, Haase, Heckman and Williams were all on hand to see the ribbon cut on the new court.

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Foley was joined by his brother, Dennis Foley, along with local coach Harry McQueeney. The three men were part of the original group that first brought basketball to Red Sandstone in the early ’90s.

Several of the students who were at the school in those years were present with their children on Thursday.

“The only person who isn’t here, who would have loved to see this, is Tom Treat,” said Pat Baskins, who attended Red Sandstone and now has a daughter at the school.

Treat, who died in 2024, is credited with starting the basketball program and recruiting the Foley brothers and McQueeney to help with coaching.

Students presented basketballs to those coaches and the other community members who helped see to the court’s completion on Thursday. Foley was given his basketball by fourth grader Jace Satsky, whose father, Ben Satsky, attended Red Sandstone in the 1990s and was coached by Foley.

‘Patience and perseverance’

PTO co-president Heather Ein described the court as more than just a place to play for the Red Sandstone Tigers.

“It will be a cherished space for our Tigers to learn teamwork, build friendships and make memories for years to come,” she said. “It’s a permanent reminder of what can happen when a community comes together for its children.”

For Charley McElduff — who says his main motivation in raising funds was, simply, the fact that he likes basketball — seeing the court come together during his last year of grade school was a lesson in delayed gratification, his mother said.

“The best part of this was the fruition of the fundraising efforts instilled in Charley the importance of patience, perseverance, and the value of working together to achieve a common goal,” she said. “It gave me hope, as well, that in this world right now — where grown-ups are having a hard time working together and communicating — good things can happen when you work together for a common goal.”