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But despite the fundraising campaign coming to an end, interim foundation President John Neal said the work to complete these projects doesn’t end here.

While the original fundraising goal wasn’t met, Neal said the campaign allowed the foundation to hit many of the milestones it had been aiming for and kick off the project to an “incredible start.� Now, the foundation will continue its efforts to seek out donors to fund the remaining projects, but the work will no longer be under the umbrella of the Fielding Dreams campaign.

“It fulfilled its purpose of getting us started. Now we're just continuing to work with the community,� Neal said.

In 2022, the foundation set out to raise more than $17 million to complete the athletic complexes, which were partially funded by the 2020 bond issue, at both Lincoln Standing Bear and Northwest high schools. Lincoln Public Schools allocated around $15.4 million of bond money to build all of the infrastructure for the outdoor facilities intended to transform Lincoln into a hotspot for tournaments and club sports.

Since then, the district has built a football stadium and baseball field at Northwest, and two softball fields, six tennis courts and six soccer fields at Standing Bear.

Now, the district is using the money raised by the foundation to complete several of the remaining projects, including restrooms and concession stands at Standing Bear, locker rooms at Northwest and field houses at both high schools.

The Lincoln Board of Education will consider a $4.9 million bid from Hampton Construction at its board meeting on Tuesday, and will hopefully break ground on the facilities before colder weather rolls in, Director of Operations Scott Wieskamp said. The goal is to wrap up construction next summer to have the facilities complete before the fall sports seasons begin.

For now, Wieskamp is just looking forward to taking another step toward the completion of these complexes, he said.

“We're really excited about it,� he said.

However, the work doesn’t stop there, Wieskamp said. There is still a list of projects to be funded before the athletic complexes can be officially complete.

At Standing Bear, two of the four softball fields still need to be built and the complex is still awaiting a video scoreboard. While all six of the soccer fields have been built at the high school, the foundation is still working to turn one of the fields into a championship stadium by adding bleachers, turf, lights, a scoreboard and a press box.

At Northwest, the football stadium is nearly finished, but it's still missing about 2,000 seats, which will be added as funding becomes available. And, one of two baseball fields is up and running, while the second is currently just a patch of grass until it has been funded, too. Each field will eventually need lighting installed.

The foundation is continuing to look for donations for these individual projects — which could come from special-interest booster groups or local donors — to put the final touches on the athletic complexes, Wieskamp said.

“We still have needs. Lincoln's a small town, and there are lots of other needs in our community. So it's been a great accomplishment thus far,� he said. “We still have more to do, and we're going to keep working at it so that we can fulfill the project and complete it.�

The foundation received several large donations from local organizations to reach this point in the project, including a $1.5 million donation from Union Bank & Trust to kick off the campaign in 2022 and earn naming rights to the football stadium at Northwest.

Additionally, last December, Chesterman Coca-Cola pledged to donate $1 million over five years as part of the district’s new contract with the Iowa-based distribution company. Then, U-Stop partnered with a private donor to give $1 million to the tennis complex at Standing Bear, and Allo Fiber made a $750,000 donation to the campaign, including free wireless internet at both athletic complexes.

Olsson also made a large donation to the campaign last year and will receive naming rights to a field; however, the donation amount was not made public.

“The Lincoln community is very generous,� Neal said.