On Saturday morning, November 7, a finish arch will go up in front of the old Ella F. Hoxie School at 30 Williston Road. Runners and walkers will head out at 10 a.m. on a 3.5-mile loop through Scusset Beach Road, the Scusset campground and the Cape Cod Canal bike path, then come back up Williston to finish where they started.
The race is called Bourne to Run. It comes less than three weeks after Bourne's Special Town Meeting voted down $90,000 to re-shingle the same building. Since the town sold the Hoxie School to Anna's Pals for $1,000, public money has gone into its roof and town officials have changed the sale terms to help it along. Now the next stage depends on grants, donors and the kind of turnout you'll see on Williston Road this Saturday.
A Building That Has Been Given Away Twice
Most people in Sagamore Beach know the Hoxie as the old grammar school, or as the gym where Precinct 2 voted for decades. Its time since it closed has been less settled. The Cape Cod Times reported that the school closed in 2009. A community group's plan for an arts and education center briefly took over the property, and after that the building sat empty.
| When | What happened at 30 Williston Road |
|---|---|
| 1909/1910 | Sagamore Grammar School, later the Hoxie School, is built |
| 2009 | Closes as a school |
| July 2015 | Town sells it to the Hoxie Center group for $1 |
| June 2018 | Select Board uses a deed reverter to take the property back after a 2016 police investigation into altered invoices stopped renovation |
| May 2019 | Town Meeting unanimously approves Article 27, allowing a sale or lease |
| 2022 | Town issues an RFP. Anna's Pals is the only respondent |
| May 30, 2023 | Select Board authorizes a purchase-and-sale agreement for $1,000 |
| January 2024 | Sale to Anna's Pals is finalized |
The low price comes with a firm condition. According to CapeNews, the building carries a perpetual historic-preservation restriction. That generally rules out demolition unless the Massachusetts Historical Commission and the owner agree that restoring it is impractical or impossible. So whoever owns the Hoxie owns a schoolhouse more than a century old, and the job is to restore it, not replace it.
What Anna's Pals Wants the Hoxie to Become
Anna's Pals was founded in 2015. Kristina Jerome is its president and executive director. The Anna's Pals website describes eight wheelchair-accessible two-bedroom family cottages for immunocompromised children, staffed by two pediatric nurses, with recreation and media spaces and medical-grade HEPA filtration. It would run five days a week. The group's Beach House project page says the agreement with the town requires the nonprofit to raise significant funds before it can get construction permits.
That permit condition explains much of the past two years. In spring 2025, CapeNews reported that Jerome had told the Select Board the project was "pretty much on hold" while fundraising continued. She estimated the full renovation at $2 million to $5 million. At its May 13 meeting, the board changed the contract so permits could be phased instead of pulled all at once, depending on a grant the group was seeking. Jerome said a wheelchair ramp would likely come early and that exterior changes would stay minimal.
What Has Been Done, and What Hasn't
You can see some progress from Williston Road. The May 2024 Annual Town Meeting gave Anna's Pals $135,000 in Community Preservation Act funds, and most of it went toward a new roof. The landscaping is also finished. In January 2026 the nonprofit announced a $100,000 MassDevelopment Community One Stop for Growth award for further work. CapeNews noted that the roof and site work were already complete at that point.
The harder work is inside the walls. More recently, the group was looking for help with asbestos removal and new windows throughout. Chief Development Officer John Izzo told CapeNews that the window and asbestos work was estimated at $600,000 to $1 million. He said the window glazing contains asbestos and has to come out before anything else can move forward.
Here is the scale, using figures already reported. Public money has covered the roof. The windows and asbestos step by itself is expected to cost several times the $135,000 CPA award. The total is still estimated in the millions, and Anna's Pals hasn't announced an opening date.
The Vote on October 19
The shingles request was the next small piece. Article 10 asked for $90,000 in CPA historic preservation funds to buy cedar shingles and related materials. Students from Upper Cape Cod Regional Technical School would have provided the labor under an agreement with the nonprofit. Both the Select Board and the Community Preservation Committee recommended it unanimously. The Finance Committee split 4-4. CapeNews reported that it was the only article to fail that night, 44 yes to 118 no.
The debate centered on what happens next. One resident worried that a 100-year-old building would keep coming back for more money and pointed out that the Beach House would serve a specific group of families instead of being open to everyone. Another called the organization worthwhile but said she hadn't seen local fundraising efforts advertised. Finance Committee member Michael J. O'Leary asked what formal commitments were in place for the rest of the project. Former Select Board member Stephen F. Mealy brought up the recent flooding at Town Hall, which is also eligible for CPA money, as a competing need.
In the same CapeNews account, Izzo answered O'Leary directly:
Anna's Pals has no formal commitments yet, but there are "several hundred thousand dollars in grant applications sitting," and the organization is "cultivating major donors to an ask by the end of this year."
So the cedar siding, the windows and the asbestos work now depend mainly on grant decisions and private donors. Saturday's race is a fundraiser held right at the building.
Saturday's Course Runs Through Sagamore Beach
Bourne to Run doesn't send anyone to a highway or a high school track. The route uses the roads and paths around the school:
- Start in front of the Hoxie and turn right onto Williston Road, heading north.
- Turn right onto Scusset Beach Road and stay on the right shoulder. Volunteers with signs will be at the intersections.
- Go into the Scusset Beach Campground and follow its internal paved loop.
- Leave by the footpath and turn right onto the Cape Cod Canal bike path, toward the Sagamore Bridge.
- Take the footpath connector back to Williston Road, then head up Williston and turn right to the finish.
The Anna's Pals event page says the race is open to all ages, with timed and untimed options. On RunSignup, standard registration is $44.35 including a $4.35 fee. It's $23.15 for ages 5 to 10 and $33.75 for ages 80 to 100. The event runs from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., and registration stays open until 11:30 a.m. on race day.
If you aren't running, plan for some extra foot traffic on Williston and Scusset Beach roads Saturday morning. The campground and the canal path will be shared with the race until it wraps up.
The Rest of November at the North End of the Canal
The race also lands during Scusset's quiet season. The Department of Conservation and Recreation's 2026 camping schedule limits camping from October 29 through November 21 to Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, for self-contained units only. November 21 is the last night of the season. The state's parking guide lists Scusset's parking-fee season as May 23 through October 12, with rates of $14 for Massachusetts vehicles and $40 for out-of-state vehicles.
Across the canal, things get busier. CapeNews reported that Mass Coastal Railroad is bringing the Polar Express back to Buzzards Bay. CEO Kaylene Jablecki told the Select Board that last year's run brought about 40,000 people into town. First Responders Night is Saturday, November 14. The railroad has permission to stage buses in the Taylor Point Marina lot from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., November 21 through December 23.
The Anna's Pals Beach House page has updates on the Hoxie project, and you can register for Saturday's race on RunSignup until 11:30 a.m. that morning.
If you have questions about the Hoxie or the rest of Williston Road, I'm happy to talk about what is happening there or anywhere else in Sagamore Beach. Reach out through Christopher Sheridan. Let's Connect.
