The initial phase of improvements at Exeter-West Greenwich High School’s athletic field is under way; it includes flattening out and resodding the football-soccer field and rebuilding the running track.

The Providence Journal / Bill Murphy

WEST GREENWICH — When the booster group EWGSports4Kids began raising money five years ago for a $2-million overhaul of the sports complex at Exeter-West Greenwich High School, it envisioned a new running track with a rubberized surface.

But the group, which has raised $800,000 thus far, has decided to settle for a less-expensive asphalt surface. And while it has enough money for that and a planned upgrade of the lumpy football-soccer field, the group says a lighting system, concession stand and new seating will have to wait until more money is raised.

Trucks carrying a total of 25,000 cubic yards of gravel began rolling in last week, and employees of Langford Bros., Cranston, will dig up the lumpy field and level it off with fresh dirt and grass and resurface the running track. Heavy equipment is already on the job; it’s not clear when this phase of construction will be done.

A groundbreaking ceremony will be held at 11 a.m. Monday for what will be dedicated as the Stephen J. Anderson Memorial Field, named for the late Coventry legislator, teacher and coach.

“I’ve never been so happy to see a humungous pile of dirt,” said Sharon Pelser, who started EWGSports4Kids.

“If we didn’t start the project now, the brass ring will be out of our reach.”

In 2003, Pelser and a few others began collecting deposit bottles and cans to raise money to replace the cinder-dirt track. Fundraising efforts became more sophisticated; the group organized a 5K run and received sizable grants from the state Department of Environmental Management and the Champlin Foundation.

Sports teams that use the field in the fall are making adjustments to accommodate the work. Officials said the football team will play no home games unless an arrangement can be reached to use Coventry High School’s field. Soccer teams will use the Exeter-West Greenwich Youth Soccer Association fields, on Victory Highway near Town Hall.

lsparks@projo.com