St. Albert city council has approved this year's funding allocations for the city's Community Capital Program grant, with recipients including two school societies fundraising for new playgrounds, the local branch of the Royal Canadian Legion, and more.
Receiving $65,000 each is the Ecole Marie Poburan Parent Society and the Friends of Bertha Kennedy School Society, both of which are looking to get new playgrounds for their respective schools.
Samantha Kluthe, the chair of the Ecole Marie Poburan Parent Society's playground committee, told the Gazette the society has been fundraising to replace the school's playground for at least 10 years, and this grant will put them closer, but still short of their $300,000 goal.
“It's 20 years old,” Kluthe said of the playground. “It's still in good shape in that it's safe right now, but last year the city came in and actually just took two slides overnight.”
“It looks good right now but at any time inspectors can come and start closing and removing play structure components that are no longer deemed safe.”
Kluthe said the Parent Society has raised about $65,000 on its own, and with another $65,000 coming from the city, the society is now setting its eyes on the provincial government's Community Facility Enhancement Program (CFEP). Successful CFEP applicants receive a matching amount of funding, meaning the society could receive $130,000 from the province next year.
Even if the society receives provincial funding, Kluthe said she's worried that the society will still be $40,000 short of their goal. The society had requested $100,000 in funding from the Community Capital Grant, which is allocated through recommendations to council from the citizen-based Community Services Advisory Committee (CSAC).
“It completely changes our plan — our building plan,” Kluthe said, adding that the society was expecting to receive their full funding request.
Construction was initially expected to begin in June of next year, with the new playground scheduled to re-open that fall. The society is still assessing its options with further fundraising deemed necessary unless the design of the new playground is scaled back slightly from its current plan, Kluthe said.
Legion to replace HVAC system
Another local group looking to replace some key infrastructure with grant funding is the St. Albert branch of the Royal Canadian Legion.
The legion is receiving $59,830 from this year's Community Capital Grant stream, which past president Doug Delorme says will be used to replace the main heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system in the legion building on Tache Street, as well as the building's kitchen air intake system.
“The main HVAC system, it was replaced back in, I think, 1992 — it's basically at the end of its lifecycle, and (for) the kitchen, it's probably the original system that we had since the building was built in 1976,” Delorme said in an interview. “We're having problems keeping the systems going.“
“It's costing us several thousands of dollars each year just to keep the systems going, so it's badly needed,” he said.
Delorme explained that the legion's funding request was about $3,000 more than what the group will receive from the grant, so some additional fundraising will be needed.
“We have some money set aside for this project, but the money is tight.”
Once funds are in place, Delorme said, the legion branch will look to get the parts and equipment needed for the new HVAC system, which could take up to 10 months.
“Systems are getting very old, it is hard to get parts to fix the units, so it's always a scare for us that one of these days (a maintenance worker) is going to come in tell us he's done what he can and he can't get the system going.”
Slow Pitch Association
The St. Albert Men's Slow Pitch Association, the sole proprietors and caretakers for the Meadowview Ball Diamonds in the Mission neighbourhood, are receiving $45,000 to help complete a multitude small but important upgrades to the facility.
The association's operations coordinator, Lynda Holde said the grant will go towards refurbishing the concession stand, including a new water heater, some plumbing work, a new paint job for the roof, LED lighting, and more.
As well, Holden said, the grant will cover a new picnic table and some brick-work on one of the diamond's dugouts as a few bricks have come loose and fallen out.
“We've actually been compiling a wish list for things we need to repair over the last few years but then when COVID hit all of our reserve funds went to sort of sustain ourselves through that,” she said. “That interrupted the maintenance side of things on the facility.”
Holden said the grant will cover about a third of the overall costs the association's identified for the maintenance work, although the group only received about $4,000 less than what was requested for the Community Capital Grant this year.
Just like the Ecole Marie Poburan Parent Society, Holden said the association will be looking to apply for the next round of CFEP funding from the provincial government.
“The league is fundraising right now to raise the balance that will be needed to get all this done,” she said, explaining that for the month of May the Association is running an online auction on the Slow Pitch website.
All maintenance work is planned to be completed after this year's slow pitch season and finished before next spring.
The two remaining recipients of this year's Community Capital Grant are the St. Albert Curling Club and the Society of Friends for the St. Albert Botanic Park.
The curling club, which is receiving $20,000, has needed to make urgent repairs to the facility's roof, according to a backgrounder included in the May 2 council meeting agenda.
Other than roof repairs, the curling club will use their funding towards two new hot water tanks, some paint touch-ups, and power blinds for the banquet room, the backgrounder says.
For the Society of Friends for the St. Albert Botanic Park, their $60,000 grant will be going towards building a new storage structure in the park.
“The new garage would be used to store park maintenance tools, equipment, supplies and gift store inventory,” the backgrounder says.
“The garage will also be used in the future for storage of electric utility cars for transportation of mobility challenged individuals, and as such the building will be wired to accommodate this need.”
