Mirror photo by William Kibler / Ron Beatty (from left), Bob Kutz, Patrick Lang and Mike Leonard install the hood for the fryer at the snack stand next to Prospect Pool during the community work day Saturday.

About 50 people showed up Saturday to help get Prospect Pool ready to open later this month.

They scraped and painted the concession stand, the filter building, the pool house and picnic tables; they scrubbed floors, toilets and sinks; and they powerwashed the pool gutters, pool deck and pool deck chairs.

A group also installed an exhaust hood in the concession stand, while a city worker hauled away debris in a dump truck.

Tim Wance of Altoona powerwashed the pool gutters.

His willingness to volunteer was based on his having come to the pool between ages 6 and 8 with his “god sisters” — the children of godparents Kevin and Charlene Gallagher, whom he credits for helping him deal with a difficult family situation.

Wance and the girls would come to the pool nearly every day in the summer from their houses — the families lived in separate sections of a duplex on the 800 block of Third Avenue.

They’d spend most of the day at Prospect — in the pool, out of the pool, throwing around beach balls or footballs, having fun.

Saturday’s volunteer effort is part of a city program to resuscitate the facility, which has declined in recent years and which seemed to be headed for closure under the Central Blair Recreation and Park Commission, due to perennial difficulties in hiring staff and frequent bad behavior by patrons.

It’s important to keep Prospect going, according to Wance.

“Especially for kids,” he said, “it gives them a place to go, something to do outside the home, regardless of the (home) situation.”

It also provides a venue for making friends.

“It’s how memories are made,” he stated.

The pool is a well of good memories for him at least partly because in the aftermath of those Prospect summers Wance went to live in a group home in Schuylkill County, where he remained for eight years.

Seven men worked together to install the hood. They removed a light fixture and the conduit-enclosed wiring that fed it, placed blocks between the bottom chords of the roof trusses, drilled holes in the blocks, installed all thread on brackets attached to the upper four corners of the hood, then hoisted the heavy piece of equipment so the all thread poked through the holes in the blocks — using washers and nuts to complete the installation.

The city bought the hood from a local agency that had purchased it for a project but was unable to use it, said City Councilman Ron Beatty, who was part of the installation crew.

In addition to the hood, workers will need to install an exhaust fan on the roof to draw air up through the hood, plus piping to connect the two.

The crew that installed the hood Saturday also installed a smaller hood for a forced-air system that will bring air into the building to make up for the air evacuated through the hood.

The fan for that system will need to be placed on the roof.

A contractor is expected to do the roof installations, according to Beatty.

The city’s Department of Codes & Inspections required the hood and the air intake equipment because the concession stand will use a fryer, Beatty said.

Food, including French fries and chicken fingers, are an important part of the city’s plan to make the operation solvent, Beatty said.

The City Council committee working on pool preparations is trying to raise $15,000 to cover the cost of the concession stand equipment and its installation, Beatty said.

Donations can be made at prospectpoolaltoona.com. Click on “donate” at the top right.

Donations are being handled by the Central Pennsylvania Community Foundation, a 501(c)(3) organization, and thus are tax-deductible.

Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.