Monday, Arts, Culture and Sport in Community Grants for 2023-24 were announced with several local projects benefitting in a variety of categories.
Keith Stoesz from the Altona Curling Club said the 50 to 70-year-old club rocks will be redone for the final time with $10,528 allocated for this project.
"They've been reprofiled and worked on a few times, and we're being told this is probably the last time we can get them redone, because obviously as you grind away the rocks, you do lose mass, and at some point the rocks just become too light. So, the last time we had this done was probably 10 or 15 years ago, and so this buys us probably another 10 to 15 years of good curling with these rocks. And then, we'll be looking at replacing them with brand new rocks."
Dwight Crawford from the Manitou Curling Club said their $25,000 will go to replace a good portion of the original boards around the rink, many of them the original boards, noting many are overdue for a fix by ten years.
"It'll save a lot of water when we're flooding it. It seeps out because the boards are all rotten, and there's nothing holding it back. It'll spruce it up quite a bit, so I'm looking forward to getting it accomplished."
Heather Imrie board member for Miami Recreation and Play Spaces said they will use the $25,000 for a local artist, Barry Dueck, to make several wooden pieces, such as benches, a picnic shelter, and a teepee, for the new nature park in the Northwest area of Miami. Each piece will be carved by Dueck with a chain saw incorporating a spirit animal into each unique piece. Imrie and Dueck will collaborate with local Indigenous people on the project.
"We thought it was an opportunity to connect with some of the Indigenous people in our community, to get their advice on how to make a culturally correct teepee and the spirit animals that were important in our region. It's another green space for the town, we are financially putting the money back into our community by having our local artists build it for us, and it's going to support tourism."
Other Small Capital projects in the region receiving funding through the Arts, Culture and Sport in Community are:
Comité culturel de Somerset Inc., Rénovations Somerset Library Bibliothèque Rénovations,
$22,354.88
Darlingford School Heritage Museum, Window Upgrade Project - Phase 1, $24,462.00
Pembina Manitou Culture and Heritage Association, Heating a Heritage Space - CPR
Station Depot, $25,000.00
South Central Regional Library, Circulation Desk Replacement, $25,000.00
With files from Zack Driedger and Nicole Klassen