BLOOMSBURG, Pa. — A lot of people in Columbia County have a lot of memories at the Bloomsburg Town Pool.
"I used to come here since I was ten years old. I would come here every summer. For Christmas, we would get the swimming pool pass in our stocking. I'd ride my bike down here. I just didn't want to lose the pool," said Robert Cromley of Bloomsburg.
Lifelong residents of Bloomsburg, like Robert Cromley, heard the call from the Rotary Club looking for volunteers to help fix up the old pool house.
But the effort also received some help from the town's temporary residents -members of the Bloomsburg University swim team showed up to help.
"Although I haven't been to the actual Bloom Pool, I grew up in my city pool, and I know how important it is to have a pool in the community. So, seeing this many people out here working at it is pretty impressive. I'm really glad that they have such a tight-knit community that will do this," said Julie Marchioni, a student and swimmer at Bloomsburg University.
The pool has been closed for the past two summers, and getting it reopened will take more than a million dollars.
The volunteers are hoping to scrape some of that cost by getting the pool house ready for a new coat of paint themselves.
An effort well worth it so that the next generation can make new memories -town officials are hoping to reopen the pool by the end of the summer.
"Everyone who knows that I'm involved comes up and offers some kind of story about what the town pool meant to them growing up or their children when they were growing up. This has been a community asset for a long time, and it's not an easy one to keep running. As long as this is a break-even venture, there's a lot of community support, and we want to see good things happening here," said Justin Hummel with Friends of the Bloomsburg Town Pool.