The Rotary Club of Athabasca has showed their support for the new pool and fitness centre that will be integrated into the Athabasca Regional Multiplex by pledging $250,000 to the project.
The pledge was made official during their meeting on March 16, and the money will be delivered over the next five years to support the aspects of the project not funded through other means, such as government grants.
"What we wanted to was reaffirm the idea that we totally support the idea of the pool, school and Multiplex being the same area," said Brian Bittorf, Rotary Club of Athabasca president. "To reaffirm the idea, we decided that $250,000 will go towards the new pool and fitness centre to support things that wouldnít normally be covered by grants."
The Rotary Club was a contributor to the building of the Athabasca Regional Multiplex, contributing $500,000 in 2006 to the project. Bittorf said the club will distribute the money in a very similar fashion as they did then.
"I think what we did with the $500,000 with the Multiplex — the first cheque was around $250,000," he said. "Then, as we had our sportsman dinner and raised some more funds, we handed off about $50,000 at a time until we made our commitment of $500,000. I presuming that weíll probably do much the same with this commitment over the next five years."
Bittorf and his fellow Rotary Club members are hopeful that their large pledge to the new community project will encourage other organizations in Athabasca.
"We as part of the community are very much supportive of that pool project and as an organization," he said.
"I think that — to my understanding — that there are some people who are not supportive of the project or the whole scope of having the pool up there. I guess were just trying to point out our support for things going forward."
"I think it's really important ñ even though it may be a little bit more than what people are comfortable with right now — that we build for the future rather than build something just for today and have it outmoded very quickly."
