After two years, the new Whispering Hills Primary School (WHPS) playground is being put into place, thanks to all the efforts of the WHPS Fundraising Committee.
The park will be open within the next two weeks, weather permitting, but it’s not the end of the road just yet and more potential fundraising needs to come together.
The new structures will be going in ahead of schedule thanks to a loan from the Aspen View School Division, according to president of the fundraising committee, Sherry Sikora.
“It’s exciting to see it all come together like this,” Sikora said. “When we started, we didn’t know if our own kids would get the opportunity to use the new playground, but it’s so exciting to see that they will get to play on it, too.
“When we got the loan from the school board, we knew we wanted to make this happen as soon as possible and right away, so we set a timeline for the end of the summer. Since then, everything has moved forward really quickly.”
Sikora noted that the loan helped to cover the costs of the playground to speed up the process, but it still needs to be paid back, and so the committee has been making other fundraising efforts and grant applications.
To date, the committee has raised approximately $25,000 through their own efforts, not including donations from local businesses and industries through the work of committee member Joann Marches. The additional money raised totals about $10,000, said Marches.
“We sent out a newsletter through the school asking for businesses around town to help and donate towards the playground,” Marches said. “There were different levels of donations with fun playground names like ‘king of the playground’ for donations of $2,500 or more, and ‘climber’ for donations of $1,000 to $2,400. We got tremendous feedback and community support.”
Between the fundraising efforts and grants that have already come through, Sikora said the committee has about $70,000 left to raise to pay back the loan. She added that the committee has applied for a grant from the Alberta Community Facility Enhancement Program (CFEP) and if the full amount requested comes through, the committee will be able to pay back the loan as early as December.
However, if the full amount is not received, the fundraising committee has already got a casino set up for the spring of 2013.
If the grant does come through, the casino will go ahead anyway for further endeavors, Sikora said.
“We developed this committee with the idea of the playground in mind, and we kept thinking we’ll have to keep raising money just for that, and so we never really thought past this project,” Sikora said.
“But we very quickly saw all the support from the community and the government for this project, and we are able to get it done sooner rather than later so there are more possibilities for the future. There is also landscaping with trees and benches to consider for the playground, but now we can look at other possibilities for the school.”
Marches said that once the casinos are started, they’ll take place every 18 months, and she wants to see them continue on after she and the rest of the committee are gone because the money raised will help support the arts in the school, field trip fees, and similar things that parents wouldn’t necessarily have to front the cost of.
“There are so many things that the money can be used for and it would be a shame to see it go to waste,” Marches said. “For us, it’s always been go big or go home, and it would be nice to see that once we are gone, more people continue to keep the legacy going.”
Sikora added that it would be a shame to have the casinos not taken advantage of.
“This committee has been like a baby to us all and it’s been a lot of hard work to bring together,” Sikora said.
In the end it’s all about the kids and the new playground is the place to start given that they will serve up to approximately 475-plus students from WHPS and the Athabasca Playschool and Whispering Hills Daycare Society Afterschool Care programs.
Although the playground will be open to the public sooner rather than later, the official grand opening is set to take place the second week of school in September, but an official date and time have yet to be determined. For now, it’s just about trying out the structure and having fun.
“The structure is starting to look really good and really fun and I can’t wait for it to be finalized,” Marches said.
