Dalhousie Ready to Play!

Congrats to the dedicated Parent Advisory Council at Dalhousie School! I know how very hard you worked to raise funds for this project – and am very pleased to have been a part of helping you make it happen – though just a tiny part!   Outstanding work!

Dalhousie ready to play

The Sou’wester – Canstar Community News

By: Staff    Posted: 05/16/2016 3:25 PM

 The work on the centrepiece of a highly anticipated park in Fort Richmond wrapped up on May 13.

Kids at Dalhousie School were out enjoying a brand-new play  structure that replaced a condemned and outdated structure on their recess.

“It’s so cool,” Nolan, a Grade 5 student at Dalhousie said, adding that he was looking forward to the first game of grounders. “It has three slides and I like the colours. They’re really nice.”

The Dalhousie Parent Advisory Council embarked on a playground rehabilitation project worth nearly $200,000 in the spring of last year. The previous structure was over 25 years old and in bad condition, as well as being inaccessible to students with mobility challenges.

Nolan said it was good to have a new place to play since the old one was torn down in the fall.

“It was broken and you couldn’t really play on it. You couldn’t do anything.”  

Jaime Webster, a parent on the advisory council, says the students are thrilled to have the new structure and are proud of the money they were able to contribute.

“There were community fundraising efforts within the school which is huge,” Webster said. “We had many fundraisers, a family dance, a hot dog day every month for the school year, so those dollars added up.”  

“The kids are excited about it,” she said. “A lot of them are watching the construction, and I’m just thankful the (contractor) moved so quickly because if this had taken weeks the anticipation might have made them explode a little bit,” Webster joked.

Some more work will be happening on the site through the fall, including the planting of $25,000 worth of trees and the installation of circle benches and seating areas that encourage interaction among the school’s diverse student population.

“It will help jump the language barrier because a lot don’t speak English when they first get here,” Webster explained.

Next, the parent advisory council will take on fundraising for a K to Grade 3 play structure east of the new elementary level structure.

Funding for the project included a $10,000 contribution from the City of Winnipeg, a $50,000 contribution from the Province of Manitoba, trees donated by Manitoba Hydro, and $17,000 from Pembina Trails School Division.

Photo:   DANIELLE DA SILVA – SOU’WESTER – The new play structure at Dalhousie School is ready to go, Jaime Webster says.

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