Iron River PAC builds cool new playground

Iron River School’s new playground might just be the envy of students across the Lakeland.

After a three year process, the new play equipment is top notch and includes three slides, a big climbing apparatus called the ‘beehive’, a parkour area, a new age merry-go-round called the ‘big spinner’ and the coolest feature of all — a 75 foot zipline.

On Saturday, October 1st, everyone is welcome to come to the grand opening, as many donors and volunteers were instrumental in making this dream a reality.

Alicia Kunec, a member of the school’s Parent Advisory Council, said it’s hard to believe how far they’ve come.

“Almost three years ago, just with our first playground committee meeting and we’re trying to figure out what we were going to do for a playground. Then we got the kids involved, they made us a wish list of their dream playground,” Kunec told Lakeland Connect. 

“Then we started working with the playground company and grant writers, we had online auctions for donations for the playground and just for the school in general. We got the M.D. involved, lots of writing grants. Now here we are today. It’s amazing to think three years later, we did it.” 

Fundraising

Parents original goal was to replace the aging playground that was going on over 20 years of use at the school.

The PAC went to the M.D. of Bonnyville twice for funds, which were granted in the total of $262,000 over the course of multiple years. The original M.D. contribution, allowed them to apply for a provincial CFEP grant, which they also received for $75,000.

That plus various bake sales and auctions gathered enough money to make this project come to life.

Principal Dustin Blake said he was overwhelmed by the support, not just from donors, but from volunteers as well.

“It’s just absolutely incredible in our community, it just never ceases to amaze me. The PAC is incredible. Our old principal was incredible. Karen Draycott, she was a big part of this,” he told Lakeland Connect. 

“Over two nights, we had 17 different volunteers show up and made easy work of it. So it was just blows me away the type of support that we have. Now that we have a great community feature that people are going to stop by in the evenings and come check it out and hopefully draw more kids into the school.” 

 

 

The new amenities don’t stop there for Iron River School.

The local recreation group Land of the Lakes has piggybacked off of the playground work and have went to work on a new rink. Paving and ground work were underway as the playground was showed off.

“Now we’re gonna have a new rink and a new playground,” said Blake. 

Grand Opening

The Parents Advisory Council welcomes all donors, parents, volunteers, and anyone who wishes to attend the grand opening of the playground on Saturday, October 1.

“We just want to have a grand opening celebration. It’s open to anybody who wants to attend. Come on out and have lunch, play on the playground. Then we hope to honor our big donors, and anybody who was involved in the project, just really thank them and recognize the hard work that was involved in this whole project,” said Kunec.