The St. Mary School Fundraising Society is another step closer to reaching its $300,000 fundraising goal to build a new playground following two significant donations.
The society received $75,000 from the Town of Westlock through its external grants policy, while the Westlock Rotary Club has chipped in $50,000.
Coupled with the group’s own efforts to the tune of $52,000, the current tally sits around $177,000, which now allows them to go after what could be the final piece of the puzzle.
“The Community Facility Enhancement Grant is a grant we can now apply for, which is a matching grant, which facilitates up to a maximum of $125,000,” said fundraising society chair Wendy Batog.
“We now have the funds to apply for this grant.”
The town grant, which is contingent on the society entering into a letter of agreement with the municipality, represents a quarter of the overall cost.
Batog and the society had requested funding from the town in 2015, but were directed to wait until the new budget was approved.
“That portion and donation is definitely appreciated,” said Batog.
“Our expectation was done on our grant (application), and it was minimal, the final amount was definitely a surprise to all of us.”
Mayor Ralph Leriger said as a community asset, it made sense for the town to contribute.
“They made it clear the playground is used by the greater community and not just the school. And that’s certainly a very valid point, if you look at a map of Westlock,” Leriger said.
With census data to back up the issue of need, contributing to an already existing effort made sense for the town.
“We have no playground or park infrastructure in that area of town. Since we’ve done our municipal census, that allows us to make good planning decisions,” the mayor said.
“In this instance, we felt that was a very valid point, and if we contributed to that project, it would save us having to build community infrastructure to fill a need.”
The fundraising society will now finalize its application for the Community Facility Enhancement Grant, which is due March 15. As part of the application process, the society is asking local municipalities, community groups and organizations for letters of support.
“I’ve asked our students to each write a letter of support. Looking at the students and all of the programs and businesses, I’m hoping to at least get 175 letters in support of our endeavour,” Batog said.
“The more support we can show on paper for the people who review our grant process, the better our chances are.”
The society will know the fate of its grant application by June, and should they be approved for the full amount, a playground could be built and ready for use by this fall.
“After an approval in June, we would then be able to submit a purchase order for the equipment and that will take up to 12 weeks and we could foresee something in the fall.”
