Viking Fund to renovate weight rooms

Now that the new Innovation Building’s construction is complete, Samo is looking to advance other facets of its campus. With the help of the Viking Fund, Samo has started to improve its three weight rooms, which haven’t been updated in over 25 years.With contributions from Samo Administration, SMMUSD and Facilities Management the Viking Fund has been able to accumulate $50,000 for the renovations of the weight rooms.  The peeling walls, out of date machines and sanitation/ventilation issues are but a few of the factors that have put the athlete’s safety at risk. The Viking Fund has taken all of this into consideration while configuring their plan to update the weight rooms.“A new weight room will improve our programs motivation to continue and increase our time weight lifting as well as my personal want to constantly improve my fitness,” junior varsity soccer player Darwin Luna (’18) said.Only regenerated three years ago, the Viking Fund is also known as the Santa Monica High School Athletic Booster Club, and it helps provide financial assistance support for athletes, coaches and teams.For the past year, Viking Fund president Jeff Finkelstein has been pushing for better weight rooms. Various Samo coaches have informed Finkelstein that the weight rooms are inadequate. There are plans to install a sanitation system, ventilation systems, a new floor and to fix miscellaneous items requested by the coaching staffs and the Viking Fund."[Finkelstein] has spent a year now working with the administration, district and [Santa Monica-Malibu] Education Foundation to bring everyone's awareness to it," Viking Fund financial co-secretary Laurie Charchut said. "The district has now stepped up to make some big improvements and the Viking Fund is raising money to buy equipment to outfit the weight rooms hopefully by winter break."As of right now, the weight room project will close the rooms for the last two weeks of December and is scheduled to be completed on Jan. 5, 2016, which is during the week students return from Winter Break."I believe that the tides are changing and both the district and the Ed Foundation are getting closer to realizing that Samo Athletics is a huge part of our community and our 1000+ student-athletes and dedicated coaches deserve their complete support," Finkelstein said.All the teams use the weight rooms for strength and resistance training, usually in their off-seasons to condition in order to be in top physical shape for their season."We use the weight room every Tuesday during the season, but in the off-season we use it every day," varsity quarterback Dariush Sayson (’18) said.The Viking Fund makes its money in a variety of ways. The main method is selling “swag,” which are articles of clothes that students can purchase at football games. They also do fundraisers, which are a huge part of obtaining the money needed to solve the problem at hand. This year, the Viking Fund is having a "'T’is the Season" holiday luncheon and shopping boutique on Saturday Nov.14 in order to continue their fundraise."I think the new weight rooms will provide a better environment for all of our athletes to work out in," Athletic Director Timothy Ballaret said. "It will be a room that athletes will be excited to work out in."