Coach gives to fields, honors team

Mark Scheer, a longtime coach with the Vashon Island Soccer Club, recently gave $20,000 to the Vashon Fields Capital Campaign. His gift is the project’s largest donation to date.

The donation gives Scheer the naming rights to the fields’ concession building. He has chosen to name the building after the Vashon Eagles, the under-18 girls soccer team he coaches.

Scheer said he wanted to honor the Eagles because he has been coaching the girls for 10 years, since some of them were in kindergarten.

“Its’ a special group of girls, and they’re all like daughters to me. We’re kind of like a big family,” he said.

Scheer hopes that his donation will encourage others to give to the fields campaign.

As a coach, he said the large fields complex planned to be constructed by The Harbor School is desperately needed.

“This season in particular has been really hard. … We have more teams and more kids now than we’ve ever had playing soccer, which is great, but we don’t have enough fields for them to have adequate field space.”

The fundraising committee is currently working to raise the final $300,000 needed from local donors to match a Washington State Recreation and Conservation grant of $500,000. It is planning a phone-a-thon on Nov. 30 and Dec. 1 to raise funds to meet the goal.