A New Concession Stand Coming Soon

If the New York State Education Department gives the Glen Cove High School Booster Club the green light and a contractor is chosen, the high school will soon have a new permanent concession stand. 

And this stand has been a long time in the making.

For 10 years, the school's Booster Club has collected $40,000 in donations for the new stand, which, school officials said, is sorely needed. Not only is the current stand in an outdated condition, it is also only open during varsity football games.

"The current stand is a metal container," Linda Perlman, president of the Booster club, explained. "It's old, it's small and it doesn't have much room. It's in bad shape."

The stand also requires volunteers to, among other things, bring ice buckets for all of the soda and water bottles because it does not have refrigeration. There is a stove in the stand but it runs on propane gas tanks.

The new stand, school officials said, will simply make volunteering at games less hectic for parents and other members of the school community. 

The proposed structure, Perlman said, would be a 20-by-25 foot permanent stand, which would be equipped with heating, refrigeration, running water as well as a gas oven and stove. It will also have enough storage space to house all of the items that are sold at games. The new structure will also enable the club to sell snacks at all games, including soccer, baseball and lacrosse. 

"The way things are now it takes an hour to open up for a football game and another two hours to close it down, and it's hard to get volunteers to do that," Perlman said. "With the new stand, all we will have to do is turn a lock and we're ready."

The Glen Cove Board of Education approved plans for the new stand at its monthly meeting on April 12. The club now needs to obtain approval from the NYED and select a contractor for the project.

"We have worked with the district to find an architectural firm," Perlman said. "We are now going to start to solicit contractors."

And Perlman noted that the club expects the new stand to benefit the high school students in academics as well.  

"With the new stand, we would take in more money and we would be able to give out more scholarships," Perlman said. "We could reach out to more students."