Snow Shoe pool to use $30K grant for next phase of expansion. Here’s what’s planned
With a $30,000 grant from the Happy Valley Adventure Bureau, the Mountain Top Area Pool Association is planning its next phase of expansion.
A 2013 renovation replaced the Snow Shoe pool’s liner seam and added a new deck and drain. Later, a wooden pavilion was built. Jennifer Nastase, president of the Mountain Top Area Pool Association, hopes to use the new grant money from HVAB to help hire a food truck, build new pavilions and expand concessions.
Nastase also hopes to install a well, as the pool relies on water from Mountaintop Regional Water Authority. This year, the pool’s opening was delayed due to “water issues,” Nastase said.
The longtime community pool — and only public pool in the Snow Shoe area — was among 91 recipients of 2026-27 Tourism Grants announced Wednesday at The Arboretum at Penn State. The Nittany Valley Joint Recreation Authority was also awarded $25,000 for improvements to the bathhouse at Bellefonte’s Kepler Pool, which has been closed since 2020 due to mechanical issues.
Nastase is unsure when these projects at Mountain Top Area Pool will begin, saying it depends on when the money is received.
Mountain Top Area Pool is an outdoor, Olympic-sized swimming pool that opened in 1969. Nastase manages the pool alongside two other unpaid volunteers, and is proud to employ teenage lifeguards, who earn between $8 and $10 an hour.
The Mountain Top Area Pool Association faces other, heftier expenses for chlorine, repainting, concessions and insurance, which costs $5,000 a year.
Entrance fees cover a fraction of those costs. A daily pass to the pool is $7 for adults, $4 for children under 5 and free for infants. Yearlong memberships are also available, at $260 for a new family and $140 for a new individual.
Financial challenges have affected other community pools in Centre County. In addition to Kepler Pool, which secured donations and a seven-figure state grant toward repairs, the Millheim Pool needs about $100,000 for repairs and is also closed this season.
Mountain Top Area Pool opened earlier this month. Two other public pools, Welch Community Pool in State College and Park Forest Community Pool in Patton Township, are also open for the summer.
