Alumni pool in money for school

HUBBALLI: It has been more than two decades since they passed out of the Government Model Kannada Boys’ School No.1 in Mulgund, Gadag district, but dejected over the poor state of their alma mater, the alumni banded together to transform it.
The 55 students who passed out of the school in Mulgund, 45 km from Hubballi, in 1999, volunteered to contribute Rs 2.5 lakh to develop the school.
The concerted efforts of the alumni for three months resulted in the school now being equipped with an auditorium, in addition to overseeing the renovation, which entailed adding a fresh coat of paint, and repairing classrooms. The alumni also organised the ‘Guruvandana’ on Saturday to felicitate more than 100 teachers who served at the school since 1985, and have since retired.
Manjunath Matti, one such alumnus of the ’99 batch who teaches at a school in Talkal village in Koppal, told TOI that the headmaster of their old school requested their assistance to build an auditorium for the Mulgund school. “They wanted to use the auditorium to host cultural activities, and other programmes. The 55 of us pooled in our money, which came up to Rs 2.5 lakh, and initiated work on the construction of the auditorium,” he said.
Instead of enlisting a contractor, the old students decided to share the responsibility of construction. “While one of us planned the auditorium, one took on the role of a mason, so on and so forth. We were able to construct the auditorium in three months, besides which we painted the entire building, fixed damaged classrooms,” said Matti.
He said that most of his peers were engineers, farmers and teachers, and each was eager to contribute towards reviving the school. “We want to donate desks, and help the students prepare for competitive examinations. At the Guruvandana event, we feted more than 100 teachers, with villagers as our audience, who had served at the school since 1985,” Matti added.
In-charge headmaster PB Kenchangowder was appreciative of the effort and expressed hope of older students of other schools offering assistance to authorities. Kenchangowder too dug into his pockets to help upgrade the school’s infrastructure.
President of the Mulgund school development monitoring committee, VD Siddangowder said seeing the alumni spend time and money on resurrecting their old school had left both teachers and villagers impressed.